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Tuesday, 17 July 2012 |
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The XXX (30th) summer Olympic Games will open in London, United Kingdom (UK) on July 27, 2012. It is the world's largest and greatest sporting event - and also one of the most widely followed events of any kind. This time, up to five billion people are expected to be tracking the progress of multiple events taking place at multiple venues across the UK, using radio, television and web media.
In celebration of the London Olympics, Wiz Quiz presents the first of three Olympic Specials today. In the coming weeks, we will explore Sri Lanka's links with the Olympic movement, and take a closer look at the host country Britain's Olympic accomplishments. 1. In 1850, a British surgeon who had earlier introduced physical education into British schools inspired the fore-runner of the modern Olympic Games for the "promotion of moral, physical and intellectual improvement." In the village of Much Wenlock in Shropshire, England, he started what was called the Olympian Games, which included a mixture of athletics and traditional country sports such as quoits, football and cricket. Also included were running, hurdles and cycling. Frenchman Baron Pierre de Coubertin visited the Olympian Society in Much Wenlock in 1890 and was inspired to establish the International Olympic Committee and revive the Olympics as international competitive games in 1896. Name the British surgeon who provided this inspiration. 2. Created by Baron Pierre de Coubertin in 1914, the Olympic flag had five interconnected rings on a white background, symbolizing the five main continents of the world and the friendship gained from international competition. The rings were blue, yellow, black, green and red -- because at least one of each of the colours appeared on the national flag of every country in the world (at that time). In which year was the official Olympic Flag first used at the modern Olympic Games? 3. The modern Olympic Torch relay was suggested in 1936, with the Olympic flame lit at Olympia using a mirror and the sun. The Olympic flame was a practice from the Ancient Olympic Games, where the flame was ignited by the Sun and kept burning until the close of the Olympic Games. The flame itself represented purity and perfection. The Olympic flame was first lit during which year of the modern era? 4. At which Modern Olympic Games did they first use electronic timing devices and a public address system? 5. The Olympic motto in Latin is Citius, Altius, Fortius (which means Faster, Higher, Stronger). This was originally used as a motto by the Union des Sociétés Françaises de Sports Athlétiques, a French sporting federation whose founding members included Pierre de Coubertin.
6. The first Asian country to participate at the Olympic Games in the 1912 Stockholm Games later became the first Asian country to host the Olympics, in 1964. Which country? 7. In 1912, Jim Thorpe, a Native American, became the first man to win both the Decathlon and Pentathlon in one year. However, officials took his medals away when they found out that he had also played professional baseball. Jim Thorpe's Olympic medals were restored years later, but only posthumously. In which year were Olympic medals restored to this Native American? 8. The use of performance enhancing drugs (PEDs) has had a long history at the Olympics, and the administrators long agonized over the impact of it on fair competition. A turning point came in the Rome Olympics in 1960, when a Danish cyclist fell from his bicycle and later died during the cycling road race. The coroner's inquiry found that he was under the influence of amphetamines, which had caused him to lose consciousness. This is the only Olympic death linked to athletic drug use. Who was the athlete? 9. In 1967, the International Olympic Committee (IOC) banned the use of performance enhancing drugs in Olympic competitions. The first time the IOC ever ordered drug and gender testing of competitors was at the 10th Winter Olympics in 1968. Where were the games held? 10. Who is this Olympic rower who history will remember for the unbelievable feat of winning five (5) Olympic gold medals in five consecutive Olympic Games? He is truly a legend in Olympic history. At the Los Angeles Olympics in 1984, he won the Gold medal in the Coxed Fours with Martin Cross, Adrian Ellison, Andy Holmes and Richard Budgett. In Seoul in 1988, he won Gold in the Coxless Pair with Andy Holmes. In Barcelona in 1992, he won the Gold in the Coxless Pair with Matthew Pinsent. The two of them repeated their success in the Atlanta Games in 1996. Finally, his fifth Gold medal was earned in Sydney in 2000 in the Coxless Four with Matthew Pinsent, Tim Foster, and James Cracknell. 11. Scientists at the European Center for Nuclear Research (CERN) announced on July 4 , 2012 that they had found a new subatomic particle which appeared to be the boson imagined and named half a century ago by theoretical physicist Peter Higgs. This particle, popularly known as the 'God particle,' helps explain what gives all matter in the universe size and shape. The Higgs boson was predicted in 1964, but its popular name was proposed in 1993 in a popular science book titled The God Particle: If the Universe Is the Answer, What Is the Question?. Name the Nobel Prize winning physicist who wrote this book, a brief history of particles, with science writer Dick Teresi.
12. The Large Hadron Collider (LHC) at CERN in Geneva, Switzerland is the most powerful particle accelerator in the world, and one of the most complicated scientific instruments ever built. It was completed in 2008, at a cost of over United States (US) Dollars nine billion. The LHC lies in a circular tunnel as deep as 175 metres (574 ft) beneath the Franco-Swiss border. What is the circumference of this tunnel, where scientists create high-energy collisions of protons? 13. The Suriya-Mal Movement was launched by political activists in British ruled Ceylon in the early 1930s to sell flowers of the Suriya tree ( Thespesia populnea , or Portia Tree) for the benefit of Ceylonese ex-servicemen. The movement soon became anti-imperialist in character, and its proponents were heavily involved in relief work during the malaria epidemic of 1934-35. The movement was inspired by an article that a British woman teacher wrote in the Ceylon Daily News in 1933. Titled 'The Battle of the Flowers,' it pointed out the absurdity of forcing Ceylonese schoolchildren to buy poppy flowers to help British war veterans at the expense of their own. 14. In July 2012, the rock band Rolling Stones celebrated the 50th anniversary of their first public performance. They are one of the most commercially successful and critically acclaimed acts in the history of popular music. At which music club in central London, UK, did they play their first live gig on July 12, 1962 billed as 'The Rollin' Stones' (they later changed their name to more formal 'The Rolling Stones)? 15. Which famous playwright once said: "Patriotism is your conviction that this country is superior to all other countries because you were born in it!" Last week’s answers1. Parents Just Don't Understand |
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