Don't know if you ever read about Olympic Games in details, but there is definitely A LOT to be amazed by! Spend a bit of your time reading through that post to discover the undiscovered Olympics...
Citius, Altius, Fortius (part 1) ~ Ancient Olympics.
The Olympic Games (often referred to simply as The Olympics or The Games) is an international multi-sport event subdivided into summer and winter sporting events. The summer and winter games are each held every four years (an Olympiad). Until 1992, they were both held in the same year. Since then, they have been separated two years apart.The original Olympic Games (Greek: Ολυμπιακοί Αγώνες; Olympiakoi Agones) began in 776 BC in Olympia, Greece, and was celebrated until AD 393.
There are many myths surrounding the origin of the ancient Olympic Games. The most popular legend describes that Heracles was the creator of the Olympic Games, and built the Olympic stadium and surrounding buildings as an honor to his father Zeus, after completing his 12 labours. According to that legend he walked in a straight line for 400 strides and called this distance a "stadion" (Greek: "Στάδιον")- (Roman: "stadium") (Modern English: "Stage") that later also became a distance calculation unit. This is also why a modern stadium is 400 meters in circumference length (1 stadium = 400 m). The Games were held every four years, and the period between two celebrations became known as an 'Olympiad'. The Greeks used Olympiads as one of their methods to count years.
During the ancient times normally only young men could participate.Competitors were usually naked, not only as the weather was appropriate but also as the festival was meant to be, in part, a celebration of the achievements of the human body.
Unlike the Modern Olympic Games, only free men who spoke Greek were allowed to participate in the Ancient Games. They were to some extent "international", though, in the sense that they included athletes from the various Greek city-states.The only way women were allowed to take part was to enter horses in the equestrian events. It is thought that single women (not betrothed or married)were allowed to watch the races. Also priestesses in the temple of Zeus who lit the candles were permitted as this was seen by the men the only thing women were good at.
The Games gradually declined in importance as the Romans gained power in Greece. When Christianity became the official religion of the Roman Empire, the Olympic Games were seen as a pagan festival and in discord with Christian ethics, and in 393 AD the emperor Theodosius I outlawed the Olympics, ending a thousand-year tradition.
The time to bring the Olympic Games back started in 1859 when Evangelos Zappas sponsored the revival of the first modern international Olympic Games. He paid for the refurbishment of the Panathinaiko Stadium for Games held there in 1870 and 1875.This was noted in newspapers and publications around the world including the London Review, which stated that "the Olympian Games, discontinued for centuries, have recently been revived! Here is strange news indeed ... the classical games of antiquity were revived near Athens".
The interest in reviving the Olympics as an international event grew further when the ruins of ancient Olympia were uncovered by German archaeologists in the mid-nineteenth century. At the same time, Pierre de Coubertin was searching for a reason for the French defeat in the Franco-Prussian War (1870–1871). He thought the reason was that the French had not received proper physical education, and sought to improve this. Coubertin also sought a way to bring nations closer together, to have the youth of the world compete in sports, rather than fight in war. In 1890 he attended a festival of the Wenlock Olympian Society, and decided that the recovery of the Olympic Games would achieve both of his goals.In 1894 the International Olympic Committee (IOC) was established to organise the first IOC Olympic Games in 1896 in Athens . The total number of athletes at the the first IOC Olympic Games, less than 250, seems small by modern standards, but the games were the largest international sports event ever held until that time. The Greek officials and public were also very enthusiastic, and they even proposed to have the monopoly of organizing the Olympics. The IOC decided differently, however, and the second Olympic Games took place in Paris, France. Paris was also the first Olympic Games where women were allowed to compete.
Ancient Olympia video
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