Samo Games

The modern Triple Fifth Games are an international sporting competition, considered to be the world's foremost, between thousands of athletes representing different nations across a variety of sports. They are held in a different location beginning on 5 Owol every five years. Their creation was inspired by the ancient Triple Fifth Games held in Cheonje in the first millennium CE, which were in turn a more elaborate version of the traditional ancient races and  competitions held annually on the  since about 500 BCE. The International Samo Committee, the governing body of the modern games, was founded in 1893, and the first modern games were held in 1895 and every five years subsequently, except in 1935 and 1940 when they were canceled due to the Great Eulhae War. The ISC is responsible for organizing, funding, and managing the games and deciding on the host cities and program of sports to be included, and each country that participates in the games has its own National Samo Committee as well. There are a number of rituals, traditions, and symbols associated with the games, including...

Ancient Samo
The roots of the Samo Games are in the pre-Cheonjean celebration of the or  on the fifth day of the fifth month and the associated custom of dragon boat racing. According to legend, dragon boat races originated with the scholar-official and poet from modern Meisaan in the fourth century BCE, who was exiled to Sansiao for advising his liege against an alliance with a rival lord; when the other lord did indeed betray and conquer his liege in 278 BCE, Gu Won committed suicide by throwing himself into a river and the locals raced out in boats to try unsuccessfully to save him, and thereafter raced in boats on the anniversary of his death every year to honor his memory. Similar stories exist about other figures in different countries of Sinju. However, historians believe that dragon boat racing predates Gu Won and instead began as a folk ritual of around 500 BCE. In a coincident but unrelated custom, Dano was also celebrated in Jeongmi from ancient times with folk games of and  as a.

The unification of most of Sinju under the rule of Cheonje allowed these customs to be practiced throughout the empire and celebrating the Double Fifth Festival with dragon boat races or martial arts competitions became widespread. A further custom of a Triple Fifth Festival, celebrating a larger and more elaborate Double Fifth Festival every fifth year, developed in some regions and was soon adopted by the empire itself. The first official imperial Triple Fifth Festival was held in 515 CE. During these festivals, athletes from all the provinces and tributary states of the empire were summoned to the capital Danyang, in modern Mincang, to compete before the emperor amidst great pageantry, as a display of the empire's size, wealth, and power. These competitions originally consisted of dragon boat racing and but gradually grew to include, , , , and other sports as well. Imperial Triple Fifths continued to be held in Danyang every five years until the decline and fall of Cheonje, with the last recorded games held in 840 CE.

Modern Games
While Double Fifth Festival competitions continued to be held throughout Sinju in the intervening centuries, interest in the Triple Fifth games revived along with the general revival of interest in classical history in Sinju in the 19th century. Sporadic attempts to revive the games were held in 1860, 1875, and 1885. While none of these were successful, they inspired the Jeongmian Han Seong-jip to found the International Samo Committee in 1893 with the goal of establishing internationally rotating games between amateur athletes to be held every five years. The first such games were held in 1895, with Mincang chosen as the location in honor of the ancient games. After an initial burst of enthusiasm for the 1895 Games, the following games were little-noticed and mostly attended by athletes from their host nations, but they gradually gained public attention and were a prestigious international event attracting thousands of competitors by the 1920s.

The first women's events were held in the 1925 Games. The 1935 and 1940 games were suspended due to the outbreak of the Great Eulhae War, and Samo resumed after the war in 1945. In 1950 the parallel Seollal Games for to be held at the start of every fifth year were established; in 1990-1992 they were changed to be held in the years in between Samo Games rather than coinciding with them. International interest in the games grew throughout the 1950s-60s as they came to be seen as a venue for competition between the Sinjuan and socialist blocs, and with the first internationally televised games in 1965. The amateurism rules were gradually relaxed and professional athletes were competing in the games by the 1990s.

The postwar Samo Games have also been afflicted by various controversies and incidents, including...