Olympics: The long road to Rio

Wednesday marked the 120th anniversary of the “modern” Olympic Games. It’s been a long road to Rio (de Janeiro); the summer games will be the first hosted in South America, where 204 nations’ athletes will compete for more than 300 medals.

That’s a giant leap from the Athens 1896 Olympics, with its 14 countries and 43 events, including a U.S. team of 14 young men who won 11 medals. Britain is one of four countries (including Australia, Greece, and France) to have participated at every modern Olympics, and the only one to win a gold medal at each.

But all that’s centuries beyond the games’ true origins.

Ancient games staged on the plains of Olympia, a mystical site with elaborate temples and shrines in the Peloponnese region of Greece, trace back to 776 B.C.E. While officially dedicated to the gods, the point was the same as today: to showcase astonishing athletes, and encourage better human relations.

So important was the latter that ancient kings agreed not to fight one another during the games; the truce allowed their countrymen to participate. Diplomacy continues to be an Olympic opportunity, where athletes whose national leaders are at odds nevertheless interact in friendly competition.

The first games were a one-day event, extended to three days in 684 B.C.E., and then to five days nearly two centuries later. Early events included running, long jump, shot put, javelin, boxing, equestrian events (e.g., chariot races), and pankration. Pankration was a primitive martial art which combined wrestling and boxing, considered one of the toughest sports. Ancient Greeks believed it was founded by the mythical king Theseus when he defeated the Minotaur in a labyrinth.

So why this division between “ancient” and “modern” Olympics, if they seem so

similar? Religious politics. As a “pagan” sporting festival it was banned by Theodosius I in 394 C.E. when he declared Christianity the Roman Empire’s official religion. After a long hiatus, Greek philanthropists in the 1800s tried to revive the Olympics to improve the “moral and physical education” of the masses. They restored the Panathenaic Stadium and sponsored games there in 1859, 1870, and 1875.

But it was really a tiny British village called Wenlock, whose residents held their first local games in 1850, which jumpstarted the Olympic rebirth. When a French baron visited the Wenlock games in 1890 he was inspired. He soon founded the International Olympic Committee to establish a new form of Olympic Games every four years.

The Wenlock Olympian Society, which donated a cash prize of 10 pounds to the 1859 Greek games, still holds annual games.

For more information, see Olympichistory.com and Wenlock-Olympian-Society.org.uk.

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Sholeh Patrick is a columnist for the Hagadone News Network without an athletic bone in her body. Contact her at Sholeh@cdapress.com.