FROM THE EDITOR
■ SUMMER IS HERE and all eyes (and TV screens) will be focused on France as it delivers the Paris 2024 Olympics, 26 July–11 August. Creating art and sprinting on the athletics track may seem to be poles apart, but did you know the Olympics once awarded medals in artistic disciplines?
The Olympics started in Ancient Greece 3,000 years ago, but centuries elapsed before Frenchman Baron de Coubertin revived the modern games in 1896. He’d been a visitor to the ‘Cotswold Olimpicks’, a quirky historic event held near Chipping Campden, but sought to organise a more decorous contest – ‘Cotswold Olimpicks’ famously features the sport of shin-kicking.