when the olympics included art.

the olympics were not always about just sports, it seems.  there was a time when they awarded medals to artists. for art.

He discovered that the story went all the way back to the Baron Pierre de Coubertin, the founder of the IOC and the modern Games, who saw art competitions as integral to his vision of the Olympics. “He was raised and educated classically, and he was particularly impressed with the idea of what it meant to be a true Olympian—someone who was not only athletic, but skilled in music and literature,” Stanton says. “He felt that in order to recreate the events in modern times, it would be incomplete to not include some aspect of the arts.”
Read more: http://www.smithsonianmag.com/arts-culture/When-the-Olympics-Gave-Out-Medals-for-Art-163705106.html#ixzz233kHCHrP

http://www.smithsonianmag.com/arts-culture/When-the-Olympics-Gave-Out-Medals-for-Art-163705106.html