Greece

Exciting sporting facts

The birth place of the Olympics
It is believed that the first Olympic Games were held in the year 776. The first - and the only - Olympic discipline was the men's "stade race". In Olympia, one "stade" was 197.27 metres long. The athletes didn't run laps in those days. Instead they ran right across the stadium, starting at a line simply drawn into the sand. A false start was punished with flogging!
Other disciplines gradually followed, for example the double-stade race, the long distance race over 24 stades, wrestling, boxing, the pentathlon (a combination of discus, jumping, javelin, running and wrestling), horse and chariot racing.

The rediscovery of the Olympics
The first modern Olympics were opened on 6th April1896 - in the Greek capital Athens, of course! There were 43 competitions in 9 disciplines and many of the athletes competed in more than one discipline. Only the first and the second places were rewarded with medals in those early days and whoever came third went home empty-handed. But political bickering and cheating surrounded the Games even then. The members of the German team for example were accused of "un-German behaviour" and were excluded from their clubs at home. In imperial Germany people were supposed to be against the Olympics! The first person to be found guilty of cheating was a Greek athlete called Velokas, who had originally come third in the marathon. When it was discovered that he had used a donkey cart during the race, he was disqualified. In 2004 the Olympic Games were once again held in Athens.

top