The Ancient Olympic Games – How It All Began

In the ancient Olympics Games, there were not as many events as today, and of course, they were slightly different. For example, the winners of that time received such a great honor we can’t even imagine. So let’s see what the ancient Olympic Games looked like, in which sports the ancient Greeks measured their strength, and what was the reward for the champions!

Did You know?

The Olympics have been held since ancient times. However, while you can hear and know a lot about the modern Olympics, that is not the case with ancient events. We know that the ancient Greek Olympic Games and religion were closely related, but it is not entirely clear in what way. The most common and well-known version is that the Olympics were in honor of Zeus, the chief deity. According to online sportsbook sites in Greece, another possible explanation is that they organized these events in honor of fallen warriors.

Originally, only free Greek men could participate in the ancient Olympics. Women and girls could not take part in the competitions. However, there was a loophole in this regard, as not the drivers but the owners of the horses were declared the winners in the popular chariot races. Since anyone could hold a horse, even women could be among the winners of the Olympic Games. In ancient Greece, they took fair games very seriously, and cheaters received punishment. The person who broke the rules during the competitions was publicly flogged, in addition to a paying penalty.

Did you know that the contestants of the ancient Olympics took part in the competitions naked? It could also be for religious reasons. Thus they wanted to show Zeus their physical strength and prove to the chief god that they were not like their barbarian enemies who were afraid to expose their bodies. In contrast to the modern Olympics, there were no medals in ancient times. The winners got laurel wreaths, and they often built statues in their honor, and famous poets sang odes about the winners after their victory. 

The First Ancient Olympic Games

The first Olympic Games took place in 776 BC. However, at that time, the program was not very colorful, as the competition consisted of only one race: the stadion footrace. The distance the athletes had to cover was 192 meters. Over the years, the program has been enriched with more and more competitions. From 724 BC, they added a new sport at every Olympics, so by 200 BC, the list was already quite long: footrace, double sprint, long-distance running, boxing, competition of trumpeters, pentathlon, chariot racing, and pankration, which is a combination of wrestling and boxing. 

There were races for kids as well, like the children’s running race, pentathlon, fist fight, and even pankration. The most complex event was the pentathlon, which consisted of running, long jump, discus throw, javelin throw, and wrestling.

Modern decathlon actually consists of the same sports but without wrestling. Apart from the hoplitodromos, where they ran in armor, all running events are also included in today’s Olympics, they just have a slightly different names. Interestingly, they only celebrated the first-place winners. The second, third, and all the other contestants got nothing, and their names are long forgotten. 

However, we still know the name of more than 800 winners today, as they engraved them on marble boards. They respected the winner until his death. In addition, the winners did not have to pay taxes, received free tickets to the theater, lived at state expense, and got various benefits. They had a privilege even in the war. The champions fought in the front, next to the king, and if they became captives, the enemy immediately released them without ransom. In short, it was worth it to become an Olympic champion! 

The Ancient Olympic Games’ Schedule

Over the years, they even established a preparatory school for athletes in the city-state of Kroton. They formed the four-year cycle because they always held the Olympic Games during the 49th or 50th full moon. So approximately every four years.

Because of the full moon, this event always took place in July or August. Of course, the initial competitions lasted much shorter than today. The event was only six days long. On the 1st day, they held the trumpet and herald competition, and the oaths and the preparations for the fights took place.

The competition for children, only boys, took place on the 2nd day. On the 3rd day, there were the pentathlon and chariot races, as well as offering sacrifices to Achilles and Pelops. The full moon was on the 4th day, so more sacrifices and feasts followed. On the 5th day, running competitions, wrestling, boxing, pankration, and running with armor took place. Finally, they awarded and entertained the winners on the 6th day. 

Pankration – Ancient Wrestling

Pankration, or wrestling as we know it today, is partly a pre-arranged fight show, but it started in a raw and more brutal form at the ancient Greek Olympics. The origin of the word also indicates this! Pan means everything, and Kratos is the word for power. The term Pankration indicated that whoever took part in this competition would need all their strength. The ancient Olympics also included boxing and wrestling, but these were less technical sports than today. 

The competitor who punched harder won the boxing match, and sometimes the contestants were told to take turns being hit by the other until one of them was knocked out. In wrestling, there were no weight classes, so the bigger one almost always won. For example, Milo from Croton became a celebrated champion many times over, who, according to legend, ate more than seven kilos of meat and drank ten liters of wine a day. Every champion had and still has secrets to winning. You can check out today’s athletes at 22bet Sportsbook!

Pankration was a much more unpredictable spectacle than boxing and wrestling, which is why it quickly became a favorite after they introduced it at the Olympics in 648 BC. Pankration was perhaps the closest to MMA of today’s sports. It was a contact sport in which both strength and technique mattered, and the fight only ended when one of the parties gave up the fight. The rules allowed almost anything except for gouging out eyes, biting, and attacking the groin, but everything else was fair. For example, Leontisk of Messene liked to break his opponent’s fingers. Ouch!

An Unbelievable Story from the Ancient Olympic Games

This sport had a memorable competitor called Arrichión of Phigalia, who literally fought to the death to win his third championship title. He finished first in 572 BC and at the 568 BC Olympics. However, in 564, at the 54th Olympiad, he prepared to defend his title again. He reached the finals, but a bizarre scene ended the contest. Arrichión died while defeating his opponent. Several historians wrote down the events, and, according to them, no one knew what happened until the judges rushed to the champion. When they got there to help him up and congratulate him, they were shocked to see him lying dead with a broken neck.

As far as we can determine what happened from the perspective of several millennia, his opponent got Arrichión in a chokehold, and when the champion tried to twist his opponent’s ankle, the sudden pain probably caused him to pull harder on the chokehold, and Arrichión’s neck could not take it. The three-time champion was given the winner’s laurel wreath even though he was dead, and people erected a statue in his memory in Phigalia. However, there were several similar incidents in the modern Olympics as well.  Check out the worst dramas in Winter Olympic history!

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