Olympialaisten

olympialaisten is the genitive plural form of the Finnish noun olympialainen. The base noun olympialainen refers to a person who has competed in the Olympic Games or to someone connected with the Olympics. The plural nominative form is olympialaiset, meaning the Olympians or Olympic athletes. The capitalized form Olympialaiset denotes the Olympic Games themselves.

The genitive plural olympialaisten is used to express possession or association with Olympians. It answers questions like “to whom do these achievements belong?” Examples include olympialaisten saavutukset (the Olympians’ achievements) and olympialaisten valmennus (the Olympians’ coaching staff). The form is typical of Finnish noun declension, where many -ainen nouns take the -isten ending in the genitive plural.

In contrast, the capitalized Olympialaiset refers to the event, the Olympic Games, not to the people. Context usually clarifies whether the discussion concerns the Games themselves or the athletes who participate. The lowercase olympialainen/olympialaiset/olympialaisten forms are used in ordinary prose when speaking about athletes collectively, while the capitalized form is reserved for the event name.

See also discussions of Finnish grammar on -ainen nouns and possessive constructions in plural forms. The term reflects how Finnish distinguishes people associated with a major international event from the event itself through capitalization and genitive endings.