History of the Olympic Closing Ceremony

The Olympic Movement was being torn apart.

The first boycott of an Olympic Games was at the 1956 Melbourne Games. A number of countries pulled out of the Games as a protest because of the Suez Crisis and Russia invading Hungary. Athletes were being segregated in the Olympic Village and also fighting broke out between Russian and Hungarian players during a water polo match. It was the fighting which prompted the boy to write his letter in an attempt to save the Games and to get all the athletes together.

Foreign governments had highjacked the Games and the athletes were a pawn in their game. The Olympic Movement was being torn apart. The IOC and the Organizing Committee had given up all hope of saving the Games from ending in failure.

Watching all of this was a schoolboy from Swinburne Junior Technical School who was training to be an apprentice carpenter. He was very concerned at what was happening and he came up with an 'idea' of holding a peace march during the Closing Ceremony. He wrote an anonymous letter to the chairman of the Organizing Committee Wilfrid Kent Hughes setting out his 'idea'. The boy included a drawing to help explain his idea. (Later he was asked why he wanted to remain anonymous, he replied "In case people thought it was a silly idea.")

The president of the IOC Avery Brundage agreed to the boy's request and changed the rules of the Games. For the first time in Olympic history, athletes were allowed to take part in the Closing Ceremony.