Having French as a lingua franca (couldn’t help myself) is anachronous. It dates back to Charlemagne’s rule (that’s Charles the Great to you British dogs :D) when France was the biggest and the best thing going since Rome. France, through Charles’ rule, inherited Western Rome’s legacy much like the Ottoman Empire, through Byzantine and Constantinople, inherited Eastern Rome’s legacy. So French became the ultimate language, the one everyone who was anyone knew. After 1066 and the Battle of Hastings, French (and Roman Catholicism along with it) had traveled to the benighted British Isles. So French was cemented in international usage as the Language of Diplomacy, just as Latin is the Language of Education. A little historical perspective.
Yeah, but considering our current gymnasts are all of 12 or 14 years old…
–Tim
Can’t think of anything more plausible than (as mentioned) it’s the language of the host nation - kind of.
Anyone who is interested in learning more about the Ancient Olympics should check out this site:
http://www.perseus.tufts.edu/Olympics/
I got curious while watching the modern Olympics and did a search. There are some great stories about the famous athletes of the time, exactly how the games were conducted, even some ancient cheating incidents.
FWIW, the Netherlands Olympic Team have “Nederland” on all of their clothing. But I suppose that’s mainly because it’s recognisable to an English crowd. Maybe not for a French crowd, but who gives a hoot about Frogs anyway 
First of all, I have to say that we haven’t gotten a good answer yet. To say that English is the “host” language is the Olympics is simply untrue.
To say that English is the de facto “official” language is also suspect - that accuses other nations’ atheletes of being as USA-centric as we (all to often) accuse ourselves of being.
Also, to say that it is done to be recognizable on the world stage is flawed: If the Chinese uniforms said “China” (or whatever) in Chinese characters, I think I could figure out that, since that was the Chinese alphabet, they probably aren’t Dutch.
Anyone have a better answer?
On a note that (I think) is related…
How come, right before the decatheletes run the 1500m race, which is (like all other races) measured in the Metric system, they measure other events in the English system? Why do Dutch pole vaulters measure their vaults in feet and inches? Why is a Russian javelin toss measured in feet and inches? What gives?
Maybe that’s just the decathlon then, because pole vaulting itself is metric, right?
My WAG would be that it has to do with the track being exactly 400 meters. It would be difficult to plot a distance in anything other than metric.
The commentary and measurements we get (in Oz) is all metric. I suspect that results are available in both imperial and metric, but that where the length of a race is a nice round number they consider it too silly to say “the slightly more than a mile” race.
As for the other thing, I’ve been wondering too. Some countries have their real names, others not. I’ve no idea why, but you’d have to figure it is up to the individual countries rather than a matter of policy.
picmr
Well this thread is going all over the place.
I still believe that the Chinese and Japanese teams use “China” and “Japan” so that their athletes can be recognized by the largest number of people watching the event. Obviously neither country is particularly worked up over putting those names on their uniforms because both countries have quite a bit of national pride.
In pro leagues in Japan, the uniforms always have romaji on them. If you go watch a Japanese baseball game, the players names will be in romaji, the team name will be an English name (Giants, Swallows, etc.), and Arabic numerals will be used on the uniform.
Every single event in the Olympics is measured in metrics. Even baseball translates the English measurements into metrics (the bases are still 90 feet apart.)
The 1500 meter run is an artifact left over from the time when running tracks were 500 meters around. I believe the track used for the 1896 games was this dimension. In the US, high school runners run a 1600 meter race as well as a 3200 meter race. However, once you are in college, it’s the 1500 and 3000.
Well, if China, Japan and Korea decided to use their native character sets, many viewers wouldn’t be able to tell the difference. It’s all Greek to them! 
“To say that English is the de facto “official” language is also suspect - that accuses other nations’ atheletes of being as USA-centric as we (all to often) accuse ourselves of being.”
I think you’re seeing US-centrism where it may not be there.
- IIRC, there’s a source of English other than the US: Great Britain. As in the British Empire, you know:
*The sun nevers sets on…
*One third of the world’s land on maps and globes painted red to represent…
The empire’s not around anymore, but language is the sort of thing that sticks around.
- English is the official language of aviation, and all air-traffic communications, ground-plane and plane-plane, is supposed to occur in English. By INTERNATIONAL treaty, not jammed down the world’s throat by the all-powerful evil Amuricans.
In the winter olympics, Finland wears the finnish name Suomi on their uniforms.