Does anyone know why the PA announcers at the events in Salt Lake City are making all announcements first in French and then in English? Is this some Olympic tradition? Can't say I've ever noticed it before.

I think at the inception of the modern Olympics, the IOC, based in Paris at the time, adopted French and English as the two "official" languages of the Games, and the tradition has continued since. (I'm relying strictly on memory here; no back-up documents available.)

I know both languages have been used for the announcements at all the Games I can recall. (For drug-tests, they always have to say "Va pisser dans ce bouteille," or the athlete gets off on a technicality. )

English and French are the official languages of the Olympic movement. Everything at an Olympic games must be announced, available or printed in both languages. When an Olympics is held in a country whose official language is not English or French, that language must also be used for everything. I don't remember which host country tried to replace French with their secondary national language, but the IOC would have no part of it. The games are in French and will be until the culture of European aristocracy that has for a long time had a stranglehold on the IOC leadership dies out.

It's really all an insidious plot by us Canadians to take control of the Games. The idea was spawned by the late Pierre Trudeau who made bilingualism official back in '69, paving the way for the first-ever Bilingual Jeux Olympiques in Montreal seven years later. We feel right at home at every Olympics because the official languages used happen to be the same two spoken up here in 'Le Grand Nord Blanc'

Actually, I believe at least part of the reason is the fact that the founder of the modern Olympics, Pierre de Coubertin, was French. Also, the IOC is headquartered in Lausanne, Switzerland where one of the official languages is French.

He he one of the official languages of Switzerland is also Romansch....

Yup, Les Jeux Olimpiques are always going to be bilingual. Charter is in French. It is part of the, well, rules, that everything be in French. It does make life interesting!!

Are all the Olympics in English and French? I thought English and Catalan were the only two official languages of the Barcelona Olympics. Then again, I don't really understand much French, so maybe I just zoned it out.

Actually, Marc, the "insidious plot" was hatched by the Parti Quebecois. By their law, all English announcements must be only half as loud as the French.

Hey, whatever happened Esperanto? That way, we could all be lodging our protests in the same language!

If you saw the Sale/Peltier news conference right after it was announced that they would get the gold you saw Olympic bilingualism at it's best and worst. Oh, that was Canadian bilingualism. Never mind