To be an Olympic champion now just shows that you can achieve anything.” When I was younger I didn’t think I’d ever achieve anything because of who I was. “I feel incredibly proud to say that I am a gay man and also an Olympic champion. Perhaps more moving though was the speech Daley gave after his victory: Winning with prideīritain has been rooting for Tom Daley to win the gold since he first joined team GB for the Beijing 2008 Games, and this year we finally saw it happen. We just look at each other and we know, that is it, it is done. “I look at him, he looks at me, and we know it. It was an emotional moment between the two friends, and their show of solidarity moved audiences as well. This is the first time since 1912 that there’s been a joint gold medal in an athletics event at the Olympics. Having both jumped 2.37 metres in the high jump competition, the athletes from Qatar and Italy decided to share the victory rather than settle the score with a jump off. This year however, Mutaz Barshim and Gianmarco Tamberi showed us that winning is about more than defeating your opponent. The Olympics is often celebrated as the greatest sporting event in the world, and one which promotes friendly competition. Here are just three of our favourite moments from this year’s Games: 1. Now, many weeks after this speech, we’ve seen the Olympic athletes more than live up to Bach’s expectations.
“ The Olympic Games have throughout their history demonstrated their ability to promote human understanding even where political agreement has proved elusive… When the athletes of all the 206 National Olympic Committees and the IOC Refugee Olympic Team finally come together for the postponed Olympic Games Tokyo 2020 in 50 days from now, on 23 July, they will send a powerful message from Tokyo to the world: the message of peace, solidarity and resilience.” In the build up to the Tokyo games, Thomas Bach, president of the IOC, delivered a conference speech in which he said: The International Olympic Committee recognises “building a better and more peaceful world through sport” as key to the Olympic Charter, and highlights the importance of sports in building bridges between nations. While the Olympics are an opportunity to celebrate sporting excellence, they have also always served another purpose: celebrating international co-operation. We’ve explored the link between sports and peace before at the museum – we even have an Olympic torch from 2012 in our collection! With the Tokyo 2020 Olympic Games over, and the Paralympic Games starting soon, we wanted to take a moment to reflect on some of the wonderful moments of peace-making that we’ve seen so far.
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