Threes and the Olympics

The motto of the Olympic Games is the hendiatris Citius, Altius, Fortius, which is Latin for "Faster, Higher, Stronger." Hendiatris (Greek for one through three) is a figure of speech in which three words express one idea. “Wine, women and song” is another example to represent hedonism, a concept now embraced by the more modern expression, “Sex, drugs and rock and roll.”  The Olympic motto was proposed by Pierre de Coubertin when he created the International Olympic Committee in 1894. He introduced the motto in 1924 at the Olympic Games in Paris. 

 

Winners in the modern Olympics receive gold, silver and bronze medals for first, second and third finishes. During the ancient Greek Olympic games, the winner received a wreath made of olive branches, not a gold medal, that was placed on his head. The crown was crafted from leaves from a sacred tree near the temple of Zeus at Olympia. The kotinos was intertwined to form a circle or a horseshoe and was introduced supposedly by Heracles, who was the paragon of masculinity and the greatest of Greek heroes, the son of Zeus. Romans and later those in the West know Heracles as Hercules. In the ancient Olympic Games there were no gold, silver, or bronze medals. There was only one winner per event.

 

From Threes, Chapter Ten, “Threes in Sports and Games”