S05_E01: Quiz of the Modern Olympiad | Rishabh and Keshav

Quiz of the
Modern
Olympiad
S05_E01
06th
August 2021
QM: Rishabh and KKJ

RULES
DIRECT +10/0
BOUNCE +10/0
POUNCE +10/-5
FOR POUNCING, TAG THE QUIZMASTER WITHIN THE
POUNCE WINDOW IN YOUR TEAM’S TEXT CHANNEL
AND WRITE YOUR ANSWER

01
The opening ceremony of the 1992 Barcelona Olympics gave a novel twist given to a
tradition as old as the ancient Olympics themselves. They lit the Olympic cauldron in a
grand way which required many days of practice and the services of a paralympic
medallist. About the lighting, the athlete later said:
“I had been working for a year with Dr. Mariano Espinosa, a sophrology specialist, who
taught me some exercises to keep my body relaxed and my mind calmed. Sophrology
helps you avoid any potential distractions and to keep yourself fully focused on the
target.”
“Being like a machine was the secret of the success. The following day I started to realise
what I had done because I was called from many TV shows and everybody congratulated
me in the streets.”
Explain how the Olympic cauldron was lit at the 1992 Olympics.

A01
The Olympic cauldron was lit by a ﬂaming arrow ﬁred by Spanish archer
Antonio Rebollo standing in the center of the stadium

02
The modern pentathlon is a unique event being held at the modern Olympics since
1912. As the name suggests, it consists of five events and an overall result is compiled
which decides the medal winners. It was inspired by and based on the pentathlon
event that used to be held in the ancient Olympics.
The ancient pentathlon event consisted of a foot race, wrestling, javelin, long jump and
discus. It was modelled after the skills needed by an ideal soldier of that time. The
modern pentathlon too follows this principle, but with the nature of warfare having
changed dramatically since the time of the ancient Olympics, the five events to be part
of the modern adaption were changed accordingly. The five events that are a part of
the modern pentathlon today are running, swimming, equestrian, fencing and X.
Identify X.

03
A certain rule regarding the eligibility of athletes had been in place since the inception of
the modern Olympic games, considered to be integral to the Olympic spirit by the founders.
This rule, however, risked being ambiguous, partial and open to exploitation and a famous
victim of this rule was popular athlete Jim Thorpe.
He won two gold medals at the 1912 Olympics but was later stripped of his medals when
reports emerged a few months later that he had broken the rule two or three years prior to
the Olympics. The IOC, after years of being pressurised, posthumously reinstated his
medals in 1982 on the technical grounds that the disqualiﬁcation had been done after the
30-day window allotted for protests. Over the next few years, the rule slowly faded out of
the Olympics and is no longer an eligibility criterion, its increasing ambiguity and
exploitation by certain countries being the reason for its removal.
Identify the rule being talked about.

A03
Only amateur were athletes allowed to participate, i.e.
athletes who play sports as a hobby and not as their
profession and don’t earn money from playing sports

04
Israeli gymnast Artem Dolgopyat won the Gold medal
in the Men’s ﬂoor exercise event at the 2020 Tokyo
Olympics. This was a historic moment for the country of
Israel: their ﬁrst medal in the sport of gymnastics and
only their second-ever Olympic gold medal ever.
However, soon after this glorious moment for Israel, an
Indian music composer started trending on twitter.
Despite having no connection to the ongoing Olympics
and for sure having nothing to do with the gymnastics
event that had just taken place, he was being widely
talked about on social media.
Who was the composer and why was he being talked
about?

A04
Anu Malik
viewers realised that his song ‘Mera Mulk Mera Desh’ from the movie Diljale
was too similar to the Israeli national anthem that of course was played
(and heard worldwide) at the podium ceremony for the event

05
The Olympic medals have had a speciﬁc design or a slight variation of it on the obverse (the
‘front’ side) of the medal for a long time. The design, featuring the Greek goddess Nike, was
used from the 1928 Olympics onwards for many editions, sometimes with small changes
but the same basic concept.
However in 2000, there was a negative reaction to the Olympic medal design revealed for
the upcoming Sydney edition. A major controversy arose over a speciﬁc feature of the
nearly 70 year-old design, with it being blamed for ignoring the birthplace of the Games. It
could also be said that it was paying homage to the wrong ancient civilization.
With the next Olympics taking place in Greece, the design for those games replaced the
feature with another which was much more appropriate for the Olympic Games and has
been a permanent part of the obverse of the Olympic medals ever since.
What was this all about/what feature of the design was replaced and by what?
(P.S. in case you were wondering, it is a mystery why it took 70 years to notice this)

A05
The old design featured the Roman Colosseum, it was replaced by the Panathenaic
Stadium in Athens (a venue for both ancient and modern Olympic Games) 2004
onwards
1996 2004 2012
2000

06
The 1960 Rome Olympics is looked back at as a disappointment for India. On
the 6th of September, the 400m ﬁnals took place. The indian sensation Milkha
Singh, whose story has now been immortalised through the biopic made on
him by Rakesh Omprakash Mehra, was one of the contenders.
Heartbreakingly, he ﬁnished fourth and India’s best chance in many years to
win an Olympic medal in athletics was gone.
Just three days later, there was another gloomy result for the Indian
contingent, another expected victory for India did not happen. This loss hurt a
lot because of the opponent they lost to and the fact that history was on our
side. However, India achieved redemption against the same opponent four
years later in Tokyo.
Explain what is being talked about here.

A06
The Indian hockey team lost to Pakistan in the 1960 ﬁnal
and failed to win the Gold medal for the ﬁrst time since
1928

RULES
Write the answers in a single message on your team’s
text channel and tag the quizmaster
DO NOT UNMUTE AND ANSWER
FOR EACH ANSWER +10/0
BONUS FOR GETTING ALL 5 CORRECT +20

07
2008
China Malaysia China
2012
China Malaysia China
2016
China Malaysia Denmark
Who is this three time silver-medallist?
(Name the event for part points.)

08
2012
Jamaica USA Jamaica
2016
Jamaica USA Jamaica
2020
Jamaica Jamaica Jamaica
Which event is this?

09
2012
USA South Africa and Russia
2016
Singapore South Africa, Hungary and USA
2020
USA Hungary Switzerland
Which event is this?

2012
USA Qatar, Canada and Great Britain
2016
Canada Qatar Ukraine
2020
Italy & Qatar Belarus
Which event?
10

11
1900
USA Imperial India Australia
1904
USA USA USA
1908
Imperial USA USA
Canada
Who is the athlete representing Imperial India?

A07
Lee Chong Wei- Badminton men’s singles

A09
Swimming - 100m Butterﬂy

12
A long standing tradition of the Olympic Games opening ceremony has been an ofﬁcial
declaration that ‘opens’ the Games. The sitting president of the International Olympic
Committee makes a speech and then invites a representative from the host country to
declare the Games open.
“I declare open the Games of [name of host city] celebrating the [number of the Olympiad]
Olympiad of the modern era”
Most of the time, this is done by the head of the state of the host nation. Four individuals in
history have opened the Games more than once, including Queen Elizabeth II. She has
opened two Games herself, while on four occasions she was represented by her ofﬁcials.
These six occasions include both summer and winter olympics across three countries.
One of the countries being UK (London 2012 Games), which other two countries has she
opened the Games in and why?

A12
She has opened (directly or by representation) Olympic Games
in Australia, Canada and of course the UK.
Australia and Canada are commonwealth realms, and Queen
Elizabeth II is the ofﬁcially the Queen of these countries as well.

13
The bid to host the 1904 Olympics was initially awarded to an
American city X. However, the city of St. Louis was planning on
holding a ‘World’s Fair’ in 1903, which later got postponed to
1904. Realising that the Olympics in X would coincide with their
World’s Fair, the St. Louis organisers threatened to organise
their own sporting competitions in the Fair to outshadow the
Olympics.
Faced with a tough choice, the IOC decided to shift the Olympic
Games to St. Louis to avoid any clashes and to supplement the
World’s Fair being held there instead of competing against it.
The city of X later bid for hosting the 1952, 1956 as well as the
2016 Olympics, losing on all three occasions and as a result
hasn’t managed to host an Olympics till date.
Identify the city X.

14
The 1988 100m sprint final is one of the most famous Olympic races in history, though
probably not for the right reasons. The lineup was star studded, consisting of big names such
as Carl Lewis, Ben Johnson, Calvin Smith and Linford Christie. As soon as the starting gun
went off, Ben Johnson burst out of the blocks to take an early lead and pulled away to win the
race with a jaw-dropping time of 9.79 seconds, a world record then. Two days later, he
tested positive for a banned substance and was stripped of his medal.
More drama was soon to follow. Carl Lewis (who inherited the gold medal after Johnson was
disqualified) also tested positive for banned substances, however it was argued that the
concentrations were too low for it to be a clear-cut positive test and also that the
consumption was accidental. The silver medallist, Linford Christie of Britain, tested positive
but even that was explained away by citing accidental ingestion. In fact, six of the eight
athletes in that race were involved in a drug scandal at some point or the other in their
career. Calvin Smith, the only ‘clean’ athlete in the top five, is considered by many to be the
true winner of that race.
The race is often referred to as the “The _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ race in history”, and a book of the same
name has been written about this race.
Fill in the blank.

A14
The dirtiest race in history

15
Artistic Swimming, a hybrid form of swimming, dancing and gymnastics is one of the rare
Olympic sports that is contested only by women: there are no men’s events. Introduced in
the Olympics in 1984, it was known as synchronised swimming till 2017. Two separate
medal events are there: duets and teams. In both of them, the objective is to perform
athletic and artistic routines inside the swimming pool and they are scored on their
choreography, difﬁculty, technique and synchronisation.
When introduced in 1984 however, there was also a solo synchronised event, which sounds
like an oxymoron. It was present for two more Olympics before it was removed. A teams
event was added and since 2000 the duets and the teams have been featured in
synchronised swimming.
In the absence of any other swimmer (being a solo event), what were the solo synchronised
swimmers supposed to synchronise their performance with?

A15
They were supposed to be
synchronised with the
music
they were performing to

16
What is common between these Olympic athletes?

A16
They all were the ﬁrst Olympic Gold medallists for their country
Joseph Schooling - Singapore
Hidilyn Diaz - Philippines Flora Duffy - Bermuda
Irving Saladino- Panama
Hoàng Xuân Vinh- Vietnam
Ahmed Al Maktoum- UAE

17
Vera Caslavska was a legendary Olympic gymnast of the 1960s. Having already won three
gold medals for her country Czechoslovakia in 1964, she came into the Mexico Olympics in
1968 as one of the biggest stars of gymnastics. However, for the last two months before the
Games, she had to ﬂee to a remote forest hideout and practice for her events using
makeshift apparatus.
In Mexico City, she did end up winning four Gold medals, but she was probably a victim of
biased decisions on the part of the referees due to which she had to share the gold medal
with another gymnast in one event while being robbed of the gold entirely in another. On
both occasions, a Soviet gymnast ended up winning. Just like Tommie Smith and John Carlos
had protested against racism on the podium after their 200m event about a week ago, Vera
too decided to protest and express her political views on the podium. Her protests were
more subtle than the Black Power salute done by the Americans, and involved her lowering
and turning her head away during certain parts of the podium ceremonies of the two
controversially judged events.
What political issue was she drawing attention to/protesting against?

A17
The invasion of Czechoslovakia
by USSR and other Warsaw Pact countries

RULES
Write the answers in a single message on your team’s
text channel and tag the quizmaster
DO NOT UNMUTE AND ANSWER
FOR EACH ANSWER +10/0
BONUS FOR GETTING ALL 5 +20

18
This was the ﬁrst time when the emblem of the games were selected on the basis of
public votes. The emblem traces a single ice-white line of the number XY, which is
the last two digits of the Olympic year.
Which Olympics are we talking about?

While the logo of this Olympics attracted a lot of criticism, the font didn’t fare any
better. While the idea behind the ‘edgy’ design for the Games was to inspire the
youth with its energetic branding. The logo recieved a lot of backlash from different
quarters about how it did not represent the host city in particular and it could be
easily misinterpreted. In a historic ﬁrst, this was the ﬁrst Olympics logo that didn’t
feature any city or country but the Olympic year itself.
Which Olympics?
19

20
The design team wanted to create a design that merged the
ancient and modern cultures of the host country.
The human forms on the pictograms were inspired by the
ancient culture. The black colour of the ﬁgures – together
with the white lines – is taken from antique vases, on which
ﬁgures in black have also been painted. In addition, the
orange background and the shape of each sports pictogram
are a reference to clay fragments from antiquity.
Even the emblem of the games represented the highest
honor an athlete could get in the ancient Olympics.
Which Olympics?
Image Follows

21
The three mascots of the Salt Lake 2002
Olympics were named - Powder, Copper and
Coal.
Powder is a snowshoe hare; Copper is a
coyote, and Coal, a black bear. The hares are
fast runners, the coyotes have an ability to
climb the highest mountaintops and the black
bears represent strength.
Together, what do these three represent with
respect to the Olympics?

22
In Italian culture, a piazza is an open space which serves as a meeting point. Thus
quite appropriately the look of the Turin 2006 Winter Olympics was inspired by the
piazza.
One of the most striking innovations to evolve in the image and identity of Turin 2006
was the design of the Olympic medal, unprecedented in Olympic history. The
signiﬁcance of the design was enhanced by its connection to the Olympic symbol of
ﬁve interlocking rings, in which the medals appeared to encircle the heart – the
source of passion – of each Olympic medallist.
What was the special feature of the medals?

20
The design team wanted to create a design that merged the
ancient and modern cultures of the host country.
The human forms on the pictograms were inspired by the
ancient culture. The black colour of the ﬁgures – together
with the white lines – is taken from antique vases, on which
ﬁgures in black have also been painted. In addition, the
orange background and the shape of each sports pictogram
are a reference to clay fragments from antiquity.
Even the emblem of the games represented the highest
honor an athlete could get in the ancient Olympics.
Which Olympics?

A21
The Olympic motto
“Faster, Higher, Stronger”
Note: On 20 July 2021, the Session of the International Olympic Committee approved a change in the Olympic motto - The change adds the word
“together” after an en dash to “Faster, Higher, Stronger”. The new Olympic motto now reads: “Faster, Higher, Stronger - Together”.

S05_E01: Quiz of the Modern Olympiad | Rishabh and Keshav

Recommended

Recommended

More Related Content

What's hot

What's hot (20)

Similar to S05_E01: Quiz of the Modern Olympiad | Rishabh and Keshav

Similar to S05_E01: Quiz of the Modern Olympiad | Rishabh and Keshav (20)

More from Quiz Club, Indian Institute of Technology, Patna

More from Quiz Club, Indian Institute of Technology, Patna (20)

Recently uploaded

Recently uploaded (20)

S05_E01: Quiz of the Modern Olympiad | Rishabh and Keshav