The Olympic Games: Lee's Brief History

Well it’s Olympic time in the neighborhood again and I thought it would be appropriate to delve a little bit deeper into this acclaimed world sporting event. Thoughts? Well actually I guess you don’t have a choice on the topic, so read on!

Olympic History and Olympick History

As many of you know, the Olympic games held today are based on the similar event of ancient Greece. These Olympic games allegedly began in 776 B.C. in Olympia, Greece to pay homage to Zeus and the other gods who lived on Mt. Olympus, but also to bring together the Greek city-states in an event that would not result in a scene from the movie 300. Therefore the games were religious and political in nature. These events brought together free men from all over Greece, and eventually Italy after the rise of Rome to compete in athletic competitions. There were also games held for female athletes called the Heraea games, to honor Hera, the wife of Zeus, which began perhaps as early as 100 year after the start of the male Olympics.

Just like today, the games were a major international event that fostered pride for one’s hometown or region. Events ranged from discus throws, boxing, chariot racing, to the stade sprint race which was approximately 200 meters (originally measured in stades, which is where our English word “stadium” comes from. My Big, Fat, Greek Wedding is true, every word originates from Greek!). Another interesting tidbit is that the Greeks used an Olympiad (4 years) as a standard unit for measuring time. So, the games began in 776 B.C. therefore the famous battle of Thermopylae (from the movie 300) was held in the year of the 75^th Olympiad (480 B.C.). The ancient Olympics continued even after the Roman occupation of Greece. Just before the beginning of the end for the Roman Empire, the Emperor Theodosius I disbanded the games in 393 A.D. because the collapse of Lehman Brothers and a $787 billion stimulus package put too much of a strain on their economy…. Ok so the real reason was because he believed the games were too “secular” and fostered the ancient pagan religion rather than his new adopted religion for the empire, Christianity. Much of what we know of the ancient Olympics comes from first-hand sources. One of the most important sources is Pausanius who was basically the Rick Steves of the classical period. In 175 A.D. he wrote a travel book of the Mediterranean area after visiting several historic sites in Greece, creating the basis for Lonely Planet today (slight exaggeration).

Skip ahead over 1000 years to 17^th century England. Games were organized under the title of the Olympick Games on Cotswold Hill in Gloucestershire, England by a man named Robert Dover in 1612. These "games" were a series of competitions that mostly revolved around organized fights and brawls. For instance, in one of the early fights a man named Sir German Poole fought a Mr Hutchinson, of Gray’s Inn, during which Poole cut off three of Hutchinson’s fingers before he had even drawn his sword. In revenge Hutchinson sliced off Poole’s nose, picked it up, pocketed it and went off with it so that it could not be sewn on again. What?! Yep. So anyway, the Olympicks were suspended during the English Civil War, but were restored after the Restoration. The games were then disbanded again in the 19^th century, only to be brought back in all their Olympick glory in 1963. Today, the games are more of a mixture of schoolboy fights on the playground, Scottish Highland Games, and Fight Club. The main attraction of the Olympicks today (aside from the massive consumption of alcohol) is the sport of shin-kicking. Yes, shin-kicking. Don’t believe me? Enjoy: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2iKcDNfIy7w

Right, so then we come to 1896, after 1500 years the Olympic Games return to Greece for the beginning of the modern Olympic Games in Athens. Winter Olympic sports were first added to the games during the 1924 games in Chamonix, France. Until 1992, there were held on the same year as the Summer Olympics, but in 1992 the Winter Games were changed to fall on an alternate schedule falling on even years.

So that pretty much brings you up-to-date with the Olympic Games today. Some things have changed. Athletes do not compete in the nude anymore, and are even allowed to wear outlandish pants that the fashion police should have caught, such as the Norwegian curling team. But many things remain the same: peaceful competition, strict punishments for cheating, and even the granting of citizenship to stellar athletes to allow them to compete for a different country (recorded by Pausanius in 175 A.D. and news media in the 2008 Beijing Games).

Last random Olympic factoid: The entrance of the Olympic torch to begin the games was started with the 1936 Games in Berlin. Leni Reifenstahl (who lived to be 101, dying in 2003), the renowned German filmmaker who created Triumph of the Will, was commissioned by Hitler to document the games to show the power and glory of Germany. In creating this cinematic masterpiece documentary called Olympia, she envisioned a dramatic start to the event. She came up with the idea of the Olympic Torch Run to accomplish this effect. The act of carrying a torch in to start the Olympic grounds has no factual basis from ancient history.