When the spacecraft carrying researchers from different countries left the earth and began to travel into the depths of the sky, some of the passengers began to show each other the cities they lived in. As time went on, the cities could no longer be seen. Then people began to show each other their countries… When the spaceship rose even higher and the countries too disappeared, their fingertips pointed to continents… At the very top, they all pointed to the same place and said the same name: “This is our world!”

To see this truth, there is no need to travel thousands of kilometres into the depths of space… The Olympic Games are the name of the sensitivity that lets us see this truth with our feet on the ground and say “This is our world” regardless of language, religion or race…

While visiting London Zoo, we came across a sandpit. Without asking us, Ilgın and Ozan ran to the sandpit and joined the children playing there.

We sat on a bench to catch our breath. As the minutes passed, I saw that children from different countries of the world were mixing and playing happily together, while we adults sitting on the benches around the sandpit watched them without saying a word to each other!

The sandpit, where the power of play to unite humanity regardless of language, religion or race came to light, was ring-shaped…

The Olympic Games, which gather the whole world under the five-ringed flag, also take their beauty from that unique power of play culture to remove the borders on maps.

How did sport find its way into children’s games as toys? Which sports toys do we see in the history of children’s play?

The Istanbul Toy Museum and Trendyol present an exhibition that traces sporting contests in the history of toys, running throughout the 2024 Paris Olympic Games…

Bringing together the history of sport and toys for the first time, from a toy of the chariot races of the ancient Olympic Games to the doll of Olympic champion Muhammad Ali Clay, the “Toys of Sport” exhibition will be open to visitors at the Istanbul Toy Museum between 19 July and 19 August.