Today, the Olympic Games, designed by their founder Pierre de Coubertin as a modern civil religion, appeal to the masses as a celebration of bodies in motion, as the greatest media event world-wide, and as a modern myth machine. The study examines the Dionysian (in Nietzsche's sense of the term) legacy of the modern Olympics, and discusses its impact with reference to four specific instances: Coubertin's Wagner-inspired theory of Olympianism; the opening ceremony of the Olympic Games in Barcelona (1992); Leni Riefenstahl's films of the Olympics (1936); the televising of the Sydney Games (2000).