PARIS, July 1 (Xinhua) -- The Tuileries Gardens in the heart of Paris are hosting the 1924 Paris Olympic Games, which is co-sponsored by the French Olympic Committee and the Paris Region, and co-organized by the International Olympic Committee and the Louvre Museum. In the foreword, the organizers said that the Paris Olympic Organizing Committee called the exhibition the "Cultural Olympics".
Located halfway between the Louvre and the Place de la Concorde, the Jardin des Tuileries has a deep connection with the Olympic Games, having been held in the 1900 Paris Olympic fencing competition. According to French media reports, the cauldron for this year's Olympics may be placed in the garden. Out of the west gate of the garden is the Place de la Concorde, where the four Olympic games will be held this year.
The photo exhibition was held in a wooded area in the middle of the garden, and more than 100 photographs were placed on more than 30 panels more than two meters high, and it was revealed that all the photographs were collected by the Louvre, and the Louvre took the initiative to request the exhibition. What's more, the photos are so precious that they have never been published before.
The black-and-white photos tell the past a hundred years ago, and the vigorous figures in the photos have also gone into history. People who are familiar with sports will sigh at the glorious history of the Olympic movement over the past century, but for Chinese, facing these pictures may have a lot of emotion.
None of the more than 100 photographs are about China. If you have to dig up, there is indeed one that can be related to China, and that is the 400-meter champion Scotsman Eric Liddell, who was born in Tianjin and whose Chinese name is Li Airui, but the caption does not reveal any information about his China.
The Paris 1924 Olympics set a number of "firsts": a record 44 delegations and more than 3,000 athletes; For the first time, the Olympic motto "Faster, Higher, Stronger" was introduced; The concept of the Olympic Village was first introduced, and the setting has been used in every Olympic Games since. The International Winter Sports Week, which preceded the Summer Olympics, later became recognized as the first Winter Olympics......
There are pictures and truths, and these moments are brilliantly displayed in the pictures.
In fact, even pictures have made history. At that time, the French Olympic Committee set up a special photography team for the Olympic Games, authorized them to shoot the Olympic Games exclusively, and the photography team ended up taking more than 4,000 pictures for newspapers and news agencies. All the works participating in the exhibition were selected from those pictures by representatives of the French Olympic Committee and the International Olympic Committee.
The content of the pictures covers the opening ceremony, the Olympic Village, the venues, media coverage and other aspects, and of course, the most pictures come from the footage of the athletes competing. The exhibit features a picture of the Japanese delegation entering the opening ceremony, with the caption going like this: "Japan is one of only three Asian delegations to participate, the other two being the Philippines and India, a British colony. ”
According to the official website of the Chinese Olympic Committee, three Chinese tennis players participated in the Olympic Games and were eliminated in the preliminaries. Some researchers have also verified that four Chinese tennis players successfully signed up but did not participate in the competition. In any case, there was no Chinese delegation at the opening ceremony of the Olympic Games.
What was the situation in China around 1924? When a country is in internal and external difficulties, warlords are fighting, and the people are struggling to make a living, no matter how wonderful the outside world is, it has nothing to do with you.
The Place de la Concorde stadium next door to the Tuileries Gardens is under intense construction, and during the Olympics will host skateboarding, 3x3 basketball, BMX freestyle and breakdancing competitions, each of which will feature Chinese athletes, including 11-year-old Zheng Haohao.
From the Paris Olympics in black-and-white photographs to the Paris Olympics that kick off on July 26, the Jardin des Tuileries is destined to witness the magical transformation of China. But change doesn't happen suddenly, and it doesn't happen by accident. From the restoration of the legal seat of the Chinese Olympic Committee in the International Olympic Committee in 1979, to the breakthrough of Xu Haifeng in 1984, from the successful hosting of the 2008 Beijing Olympic Games, to the 2022 Beijing becoming the first city in the world to successfully host the Summer Olympics and the Winter Olympics, China's Olympic road has always verified a simple and simple truth: China is strong when sports are strong, and sports are prosperous when the national games are prosperous.
The pace of the Paris Olympics is getting closer and closer, when the Chinese athletes win the gold medal on the field, the Chinese national anthem sounds, and the five-star red flag flutters high, the Chinese who come to the Tuileries Garden to see this exhibition must be more proud and proud in addition to emotion.