The Olympics are even older than people give them credit for. The first recorded Olympic games was in 776 BC. The main event was the 200m race. The winner of the race was a runner named Coribus. He was unstoppable. In ancient Greece towns would have religious festivals honoring their gods. It was not uncommon for these festivals to have athletics. Athletes would roam from town to town looking for competition. The first Olympics was more like a festival that happened to have a marquee event. All the best runners in Greece met to see if they could measure up to the champ. When the smoke settled, the champ won, and the merchants won more. This 200m event drew a lot of people, and in Ancient Greece it was hot. At festivals people like to eat, drink, and buy. The merchants, along with the priests of the day decided that to honor Zeus every four years at the base of Mt. Olympus would be great. Athletics along with praise of the gods would be at the center of the festival.
This festival was so important, that anyone in Greece was given free passage anywhere as long as they were going to the Olympics. Wars would be placed on hold so that the games would not be interrupted. This system worked so well, that the games were not interrupted from 776 BC to 324 AD when the Roman Empire became Christian and the Olympics were a remembrance of a pagan god. The modern era Olympic games were reinstated in 1896 in the city of Athens. Since the modern inception of the games, three Olympics had been postponed; 1916, 1940, and 1944.
The games started as a five day athletic event. Every event placed in the games had some symbolic or warlike reasons. Over the years, more events were added and then more days were added. For the course, we are going to focus on the origins. It is difficult to identify when some events were added to the games. Here are the original five days.
Day 1: Chariot races: four sets of four horses were raced by the aristocrats. They would race for 12 laps which was about 9 kilometers. For us that is somewhere between 7 to 8 miles. This would be done in tournament style. Day 1 was like NASCAR, people loved the speed, the adrenaline, and of course the wrecks. Great charioteers would be necessary in war time. Day 1 represented the best of this lot.
Day 2: Horse races: This is when the commoners had a shot. Aristocrats would buy jockeys to race their horses. Day 2 was entertaining because the race track was not leveled from the day before. Many more wrecks, a lot more danger.
Day 3: Pentathlon: This is the day of the athletes. The pentathlon is made up of 5 events.
Discus: Thrown for distance and accuracy. The reason why the disc was thrown in the games was because the disc was thrown in battle. Soldiers would throw discs into crowds of other soldiers hoping to hit them in the head or bones.
Javelin: More dangerous than the disc, thrown in the Olympics for the same reason. The javelin was also thrown for distance and accuracy.
Long Jump: The interesting thing about the long jump is that it was done standing. The athlete had to have two weights attached to his arms. The reason behind this was to show agility as if they had armor on in battle.
200m: In Ancient Greece this was the equivalent of the 100m dash of today. It was run for speed and tradition.
Wrestling: Hand to hand combat, the essence of a soldier.
Day 4: Wrestling, boxing, and Pancratium. These were the blood sports. Wrestling is wrestling. Boxing was interesting because the boxers would wear hard leather straps on their fists for blood and pain. Pancratium was a combination of the two. The only rules of the pancratium were no biting and no eye gouging. The winner of the pancratium would make 6 times more money than the winner of the pentathlon.
Day 5: Awards day. These athletes were like professionals. They were given money, gifts, homes, etc. As long as they win they were taken care of.
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