Greek Olympics

A detailed Summary of Greek Olympics

Track and Field events, also known as athletics, have progressed a great deal since their birth in Olympus, around the ninth century B.C. More athletes and more nationalities compete in Track and Field than in any other Olympic sport. Athletics is one of the largest attractions at the Modern Olympics, drawing in huge crowds of spectators and creating intense interest at summer Olympics. Track and Field events have come a long way since the Ancient Greek Olympic games. Many events and techniques have been revised, added, or eliminated since the original Greek Olympics. The Olympic motto, " Citius, Altius, Fortius" is describing the Track and Field events in Latin. The Latin means " Faster (Swifter), Higher, Stronger," and indicates the running, jumping, and throwing events respectively and the intense desire to excel.

Running events were a major part of the Ancient Olympic games. The running events were said to have held the greatest ritualistic importance at the Ancient Olympics. The runners raced nude. The competition started the shortest races first and worked up to the longest races. The shortest race was called a "stade" or one length of the stadium, where the first Olympic games were held

The throwing events have deep roots in the Ancient Olympic games. The discus throw and the javelin were the most common events at the Ancient Olympics, but later in the history, another event was added which was quite similar to the shot put. Although the discus is one of the few events in which the skill is not useable in war, the Greeks must have felt a great fascination for throwing the relatively inaccurate implement. Both the size and the weight of the Ancient Greek discus varied greatly. Some we have recorded to be nearly 50 pounds and made of stone, whereas the later implements discovered were metal and were of similar weight as modern discs. Discus throwers were depicted throughout Greek art history as magnificent human sculptures. Artists preferred to render discus throwers toward the beginning of the throw, where the weight of the body was centered, as opposed to the end of the throw, where the thrower was terribly unbalanced and aesthetically unpleasing. Techniques that had been used in the discus are not unlike the ones used today. The spinning technique, however, was not used in Ancient Grecian times because the stadium in which the event took place was only 35 meters wide. The effects of throwing a fifty-pound stone discus into a crowd of spectators could be quite disastrous.

Track and Field started at Olympus, centuries ago, and is still a major sport today, despite changes to the program and, to the techniques used during competition. Athletics have come to be known as a ver

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Approximate Word count = 1015
Approximate Pages = 4 (250 words per page double spaced)

Category: History