On September 15th, the XXVII Olympiad will begin in Sydney, Australia. Nearly 10,000 athletes from more than 200 countries will compete in thirty-five sports. On any given day up to 500,000 spectators, workers and participants will travel to Sydney Olympic Park, and more than 100,000 people will visit the satellite venues. Many time zones away, we will watching and clicking.
"Were the ancient games better than ours? More fair and square? More about sports and less about money? Are modern games more sexist? More political? Have we strayed from the ancient Olympic ideal? Read on and decide for yourself." There is much talk of how commercial today's Olympic games are. Where the ancient games purer? The conclusion drawn by this expert from the University of Pennsylvania Museum of Archaeology and Anthropology may surprise you.
If you're looking for one Olympic site that has it all, this would be it. NBC Olympics includes news coverage, commentaries, event schedules, television schedules, sport-by-sport analysis, reader polls and photo galleries. There is also a fascinating photo tour of the huge Australia Stadium (click on Australia.) "It is the largest stadium ever built for the Olympic Games. But just how big is Stadium Australia? Four Boeing 747s could fit side by side under the main arch span of the stadium."
The five interlacing rings of blue, yellow, black, green, and red became the official Olympic logo in 1913. "The Olympic rings represent the union of the five continents and the meeting of athletes throughout the world at the Olympic Games. However, contrary to a popular misconception, the colors themselves do not represent any single continent. The colors were chosen because at least one of these colors is found in the flag of every nation." Chock full of historical tidbits, this concise site is great place to find answers to your Olympic questions.
Written expressly for students, Scholastic covers the games with a focus on interacting with kids from around the world. Best clicks are Pen Pals Down Under (where you can correspond with kids from three Australian schools), Olympic Spirit Postcards (create an online card to cheer on your favorite team) and the Dream Teen Bios (a look at fourteen American teens hoping to make the team this year.)
The kids section of the official Sydney 2000 site is divided into four zones. Sportzone has a terrific guide to each of the Olympic sports, including the two newest: taekwondo and triathlon. Worldzone hosts the Great Olympic Joke Jam. Greenzone introduces the green and golden bell frogs that live at Sydney Olympic Park. And Technozone features the two winners of an Australian student web design competition. Don't missing their excellent sites titled "The Lion of Athens: The Story of Australia's First Olympic Champion" and "Australia: The Land and the People."
Buy Sydney 2000 Olympic Games Printable for $2.00
or try a FREE trial of the Printables ClubThe following links are either new discoveries or sites that didn't make it into my newspaper column because of space constraints. Enjoy!
Ancient OlympicsCNN/SI: Sydney 2000 |
 Get educational website recommendations in your mailbox every week:Our Privacy Pledge: your email address is never shared with anyone. |
Headline Feed | Online Safety Feed | Newsletter Feed