The ancient Olympic Games were principally held in honor of Zeus, the father of the Greek gods and goddesses, as part of a religious celebration. The festival and games were held in Olympia (see 'Did you know' in the glossary), a rural sanctuary place in the western Peloponnesos (model courtesy of the British Museum).
The Greeks who gathered to Olympia's Zeus Sanctuary had similar religious beliefs and spoke the same language. The athletes were all male residents of city-states from all across Greece, with some traveling as far as Iberia (Spain) in the west and the Black Sea (Turkey) in the east.
The sanctuary was named after Mt. Olympos (see 'Did you know' in the glossary), mainland Greece's tallest summit. Mt. Olympos was the home of the greatest of the Greek gods and goddesses, according to Greek mythology.
The first Olympic Games took place in 776 BC, when Koroibos, a chef from the adjacent city of Elis, won the stadion race, a 600-foot-long footrace. The Olympia stadium track is depicted here. For the first 13 Olympic festivals, or until 724 BC, according to certain literary traditions, this was the sole athletic event of the games. The Games have been staged at Olympia every four years since 776 BC, a period of over 12 centuries.
Contrary to popular belief, literary and archaeological evidence shows that the games were held at Olympia considerably earlier than this, maybe as early as the 10th or 9th century BC. The marathon was not an Olympic event in ancient Greece. The marathon is a contemporary event that was originally established in the Modern Olympic Games of 1896 in Athens, and consists of a 40-kilometer run from Marathon, northeast of Athens, to the Olympic Stadium.
The marathon honors Pheidippides, an ancient "day-runner" who ran from Marathon to Sparta (a distance of 149 miles) to recruit aid for the fight in 490 B.C. Pheidippides, according to Herodotus of the fifth century B.C., brought the news to the Spartans the next day.
When the Olympic Games were staged in London in 1908, the distance of the modern marathon was defined at 26 miles 385 yards or 42.195 kilometers. The distance between Windsor Castle, where the race began, and the finish line inside White City Stadium was precisely measured.
NUDITY AT THE GAMES?
The issue of nudity at the ancient Olympic Games is the subject of two tales. According to legend, a runner from Megara named Orsippos or Orrhippos was the first to run nude in a stadium race when he lost his shorts during the race in 720 B.C. Another legend claims that in the 8th century B.C., the Spartans were the ones who brought nudity to the Olympic Games. It was a Spartan tradition, after all. It's unclear if Koroibos, the first documented victor at Olympia, wore shorts or not when he won the stadium race in 776 B.C. By the late eighth century, it appears that nudity was prevalent among male contenders.
FROM ANCIENT TO MODERN
Although the ancient Games were held at Olympia, Greece, from 776 BC to 393 AD, the Olympics did not return for 1503 years. In 1896, the first modern Olympic Games were held in Athens, Greece. A Frenchman called Baron Pierre de Coubertin, who proposed the concept in 1894, was responsible for its revival. His initial plan was to introduce the contemporary Games in his hometown of Paris in 1900, but delegates from 34 nations were so fascinated by the notion that they persuaded him to bring the Games forward to 1896, with Athens serving as the first host.
THE OLYMPIC FLAME
The Olympic flame, also known as the Olympic Flame, was originally introduced at the 1928 Olympic Games in Amsterdam. The ancient Olympic Games did not include a torch relay. Other ancient Greek sporting events, such as those held in Athens, were known to have torch relays. At the 1936 Olympic Games in Berlin, the modern Olympic torch relay was introduced for the first time.
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