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From the Muses Pentathlon to the Cultural Olympiad
The failure of the Muses Pentathlon, namely the art competitions that were organized - along with the sports competitions - from the 1912 Stockholm Olympics onwards, led the IOC to abolish the institution in 1954.  The Pentathlon was replaced by non-competitive art events and medals were awarded. These events were called Olympic Art Festival and were inaugurated during the Olympics of 1956 that were held in Melbourne. The festival came under the jurisdiction of the organizing committee of each organization, as had been the case with the Pentathlon. The Art Festivals survived until the Seoul Olympics (1988), presenting many differences in every Olympic organization both as regards the various themes and their duration.
The cultural events that were organized between 1956 and 1988, together and with reference to the Olympic Games, had a duration that ranged from a few weeks, as was the case in Melbourne (1956) and Moscow (1980), to several months, as in Rome (1960) and Los Angeles (1984). The events with the longest duration (one year) were held in the Mexico Olympics (1968). Moreover, the leanings of each cultural festival were different and were determined by the organizing committee. In general, these organizations moved within the following main guidelines:
- Highlight the culture of the host country. Representative examples were the organizations of Melbourne (1956), Rome (1960), Tokyo (1964), Mexico (1968), Montreal (1976) and Moscow (1980).
- Highlight the metropolitan character of the Host City, as did the organizers in Munich (1972) and in Los Angeles (1984).
- Miscellaneous programme through the organization of simultaneous events that either highlighted the culture of the host country or had a more ecumenical character. This was clear in Melbourne (1956) and in Seoul (1988).
The disparateness that characterized the cultural events organized in the Olympic Games between 1956 and 1988 led the IOC to decide the creation of a specific institutional framework, common for every organization. As a result, after the end of the 1988 Olympics and in view of the 1992 Olympics (Barcelona), the institution of the Cultural Olympiad was adopted. The Cultural Olympiad has a fixed duration of four years and specializes in four yearly thematic guidelines.
More specifically, the topics of the Barcelona Olympics were the following: "Year of Culture and Sport" (1989), "Year of the Arts" (1990), "Year of the Future" (1991) and the "Olympic Art Festival" in the year of the Games (1992). Similar was the structure of the Cultural Olympiad of the 1996 Olympics (Atlanta), and of the 2000 Olympics (Sydney). More precisely, in Sydney the events of the first year of the Cultural Olympiad (1997) were dedicated to the modern culture of Australia, in 1988 they were dedicated to the Aborigines and in the last two years (1999, 2000) to cultural events of international character.
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