2024 International Day of Peace: Memorable Olympic moments when sport transcended competition to foster international peace
From Cindy Ngamba's historic medal for the Refugee Olympic Team at Paris 2024, to lighting of the Cauldron at Tokyo 1964 Games, here are some flashbacks from the Olympic Games that exemplify how sport fosters peace and understanding, as the world marks the International Day of Peace on 21 September.
Boxing
Even before the official announcement, the boxer was celebrating her victory. It was a triumphant moment of success not only for her but more than 120 million people who have been forcibly displaced.
Cindy Ngamba’s bronze medal, the first-ever for the IOC Refugee Olympic Team, served as a huge inspiration for millions of displaced people, especially at a moment when the refugee crisis is getting worse.
Her victory exemplified sport's widely acknowledged power to promote peace and tolerance and unify the world.
As part of the efforts to mark the International Day of Peace observed on 21 September, the UN asks for a 24-hour ceasefire of all hostilities around the world.
The theme for this year’s Peace Day is ‘Cultivating a culture of peace’ which draws inspiration in the belief that wars begin in the minds of humans. Hence, cultivating peace means instilling values of dialogue and mutual respect at a young age.
Below, we highlight this and other memorable Olympic moments when sport transcended competition to help foster international peace and understanding.
Refugee Olympic Team’s first medal ever
One of the greatest stories from the Paris 2024 Olympics, was Ngamba’s historic bronze in the women’s boxing 75kg category for the Refugee Olympic Team. Everything, from her medal to how she earned her quota to fight at the Paris Games, was symbolic.
She had already become the first member of the Refugee Olympic team ever to qualify for a Games. By then reaching the Olympic podium, Ngamba, who was one of the flag bearers for the team at the Paris 2024 Opening Ceremony, reminded the world that refugees can add value to society.
“I'm just one of millions all around the world, and one of the 37 refugee Olympic athletes that were chosen to represent the refugee team in the Olympics,” she told Olympics.com.
“I hope I showed that even though we are given that label of refugee, we are just humans and athletes just like anyone else that is representing their country.”
The IOC Refugee Olympic Team
Drawing attention to the plight of refugees worldwide was one of the motivations for the IOC to form the Refugee Olympic Team, which was first constituted for the Rio 2016 Olympics.
The first batch of 29 athletes sent a strong message of peace, hope, and solidarity to refugees around the world.
From Rio to Tokyo 2020 in 2021 and then Paris, where they competed for the first time under the Refugee Olympic Team emblem, they have become the embodiment of the Olympic spirit of peace and mutual respect, reminding the world of the transformative power of sport.
Korean national teams march together at the Olympics
Another symbolic moment on the Olympic stage was when athletes from Democratic People's Republic of Korea and Republic of Korea marched under a unified flag at the PyeongChang 2018 Winter Olympics.
The two countries entered the Olympic stadium carrying a white flag displaying a map of the full Korean peninsula in blue.
An extraordinary show of unity between the nations still technically at war, similar to symbolism first witnessed at the Summer Games of Sydney 2000 and Athens 2004, and in the Winter Games in Turin 2006.
The significant victory lap by Derartu Tulu and Elana Meyer at Barcelona 1992 Olympic Games
The women’s 10,000m race, at the Barcelona 1992 Olympic Games, pitted the two of the best runners over the distance.
There was Ethiopia’s Derartu Tulu and Elana Meyer of South Africa.
But it wasn’t only Tulu’s devastating last-lap kick that captivated the world, but their significant victory lap.
As Tulu celebrated her historic gold as the first Black African woman to win an Olympic title, the silver medallist Mayer congratulated her with a hug and kiss.
The two Africans then ran the victory lap together, a customary celebration that, however, sent a “significant message to the world”.
Their warm celebration represented a unifying image of a black and white Africa coming together, at the end of the apartheid era in South Africa.
The unifying handshake at Tokyo 2020 in 2021
Sport’s power to promote peace and tolerance was also laid out on the judo tatami at the Tokyo 2020 Olympics held in 2021.
Saudi Arabia’s Tahani Alqahtani, faced her Israeli opponent, Raz Hershko, in the over-78kg women's category despite heavy pressure to boycott her judo match, like two other athletes from the Arab nations had done against Israeli athletes earlier.
Arab and Muslim athletes often boycott sports competitions with Israelis, as a political gesture to express solidarity with Palestinians.
The Saudi judoka honoured her match, and at the end of their women’s -78kg, the two athletes held hands and raised them up in the air as a show of solidarity.
Cathy Freeman lighting the cauldron at Sydney 2000
24 years ago, an Aboriginal woman lit a ring of fire, and ignited the Olympic cauldron to mark the start of the Sydney Olympics.
Cathy Freeman's Olympic lighting moment is one that Australians continue to remember and proudly associate with.
The choice of an indigenous woman to light the Olympic Flame, was a powerful sign of reconciliation for her changing country and an iconic signal to the world.
A man born in Hiroshima lighting the 1964 Olympic Cauldron
Prior to Sydney, there was another unforgettable moment at the flame lighting of an Olympic Games – at Tokyo 1964.
A boy born on 6 August 1945 in the Hiroshima region, the same day as the atomic bomb exploded in the city, lit the Olympic Cauldron.
Japanese runner Yoshinori Sakai was that boy, and at the age of 19 the amateur athlete's selection for the lighting represented the re-birth of Japan after the Second World War.
John Lennon and Yoko Ono’s timeless classic ‘Imagine’ at Opening Ceremonies
The official start of the Olympic Games has always been a moment that the IOC and local organisers choose to use to call for “peace and brotherhood, for unity and solidarity”, either through the performances and speeches, or through song and music**.**
John Lennon’s 1971 song "Imagine" has become an unofficial way to open the Olympics Games, as happened at Paris 2024.
The British singer and former member of the Beatles was the first to connect his song to the Olympic Games when he said in an interview three days before he died: "We’re not the first to say, ‘Imagine No Countries’ or ‘Give Peace a Chance’, but we’re carrying that torch, like the Olympic torch, passing it hand to hand, to each other, to each country, to each generation. And that’s our job."
The song has been performed at the Olympic Games dating back to Atlanta 1996, including at Paris 2024 when French singer-songwriter Juliette Armanet sang a rendition of the classic after the Parade of Nations.