The Olympic Games are presented as the greatest sporting celebration. But since ancient times, the newspaper has said otherwise. Even this truce has not always been maintained.
Thucydides knows something and gives it to us.
Histories (5.49.1) “That summer the Olympic Games were held, in which Androsthenes of Arcadia won for the first time in the pankration. The Ilians excluded the Lacedaemonians from the sacred space, who could neither offer sacrifice nor participate in the games. They refused to pay the fine imposed on them by the Ilians in accordance with Olympic law, because they had campaigned against the fortress of Phyrcus and had sent hoplites to Lepreus during the Olympic truce. The fine, according to the law, was two thousand mnae, that is, two mnae per hoplite.
(5.49.2) The Lacedaemonians sent ambassadors and protested that their sentence was unjust and alleged that when they sent the hoplites, the Olympic truce had not yet been announced in Lacedaemon.(…)
(5.49.5) But the Elians persisted in their arguments and said that no one would convince them that the Lacedaemonians had not wronged them. But if the Lacedaemonians would agree to return Lepreus to them, then they would be ready to waive the fine and would themselves pay the god, on behalf of the Lacedaemonians, their share.
(5.50.1) The Lacedaemonians did not accept, and the Ilians made another proposal. That the Lacedaemonians should not hand over the Lepreon if they persisted in their refusal, but since they so vehemently desired to use the sacred space, they should go up to the altar of Zeus on Olympus and swear before the Greeks that they would pay the fine later.
(5.50.2) But the Lacedaemonians did not accept this either. They were excluded from the sanctuary and the games and made the sacrifices in Sparta, while all the other Greeks, except the Lepreates, participated in the games.”
I can’t participate in the commentary game for the opening ceremony. I didn’t see it and I don’t know. But I know it’s quite satirical that 206 countries marched and it sounds like “Imagine there are no countries.” The big corporate giants are celebrating?