Olympics+in+Ancient+Greece

Olympics in Ancient Greece

Sports took a very important role in what we know as ancient Greece. Its was here were the Olympic Games were created. They were made to show the difference between Greeks and non-Greeks. They believed that this characteristic distinguished them from the rest of the world. They also showed this because only Greeks could compete in the Olympics. This events were also held in honor of Zeus. They began in Olympia, from where the name comes from. One final fact is that the games were always held in the same place all the time, in Olympia.

Althe Greek city-states united for this event. In the participants, not only we could find free Greeks who didn’t do anything else well. Some of the best athletes were great mathematicians and philosophers. Some of them even got very famous because they were champions in a lot of contests ina row. One example is Aristotle and some of his students as well of those from other genius people in Greece.

Athletes trained all the time in some sorts of gymnasiums with other Greeks who had won before in this games. The types of games held in this competition were pentathlon, long jump, foot races, javelin throwing, boxing, horse races, chariot races, among others. The athletes competed naked, just with some olive oil in their skin to protect them from the dust.



The Olympic games were closely related to religion in a ceremony honored to Zeus. Even historians tell that all the importance of this games was due to religion. We can also mention that they were considered so important that women couldn’t participate in them. They could’t even be part of the expectators. From the men, they could participate and demonstrate how well youth was at this time, every year going better and better, evolving.

They also had their victory ceremonies. Each consisted in that the winner recieved an award inmediately after the competition. This was done by one of the judges who would place a palm branch in the winner’s hands while the croud cheered and threw flowers to him. Red ribbons were attached to his head and hands to demonstrate that he was the winner. After this, they also had an official award cereminy held the last day of competition. Then the judge would announce the winner’s name, his father’s name, and his homeland in Zeus’ temple. Finally, they would place the olive branch in his head.