Celebrating Olympism

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The Olympic Games
The IOC has since being established taken responsibility for the Summer and Winter Olympic Games, each of which takes place quadrennially.
The Olympic Games are seen as the greatest opportunity for sport to bring the world together in an atmosphere of peace and harmony.
The Summer Olympic Games involves a minimum of 15 sporting disciplines with many countries hosting 18.
Since 1992 the IOC has engaged itself with the United Nations to establish an Olympic Truce in an attempt to encourage the world to desist from acts of aggression, including war, for the duration of the Games.
Over the years the Olympic Games have come to be recognized as the world’s most spectacular events with record viewers and participants.
The growth of the Modern Olympics has caused much concern and the IOC has placed stringent limits on the number of athletes and officials that can participate in each edition.
This was done by way of cutting costs and enabling more countries to bid for the rights to host the quadrennial events.
In the period after 11 September 2001 the host city has found itself with huge expenses as it attempts to ensure the security of the participants.
Despite the best efforts of the IOC to promote fair play the Olympic Games have been somewhat tainted on occasions by the number of athletes who have tested positive for the use of performance enhancing drugs. In response the IOC has led the charge in the war being waged to stamp out the use of drugs in sport by establishing the World Anti Doping Agency (WADA). The IOC has since been seeking the involvement of the governments around the world and of the respective International Federations (IF) as full partners in the WADA so that there could be a global fight against the use of performance enhancing drugs in sport.
The IOC has also been engaged in an ongoing struggle to end violence in sport as well as stamp out discrimination of every sort.