Olympic Truce

What is "Olympic Truce"?

The tradition of the “Olympic Truce”, or “Ekecheiria”, was established in Ancient Greece in the ninth century BC through the signing of a treaty between three kings – Iphitos of Elis, Cleosthenes of Pisa and Lycurgus of Sparta – to allow safe participation in the ancient Olympic Games for all athletes and spectators from these Greek city-states, which were otherwise almost constantly engaged in conflict with each other.

Taking into account the new political reality in which sport and the Olympic Games exist, the IOC decided to revive the concept of the Olympic Truce for the Olympic Games, with a view to protecting, as far as possible, the interests of the athletes and sport in general, and to harness the power of sport to promote peace, dialogue and reconciliationmore broadly.

Since 1993, the United Nations (UN) General Assembly has repeatedly expressed its support for the Olympic Truce ideal and for the IOC’s mission by adopting, every two years – one year before each edition of the Olympic Games – a resolution entitled "Building a peaceful and better world through sport and the Olympic ideal".