The Olympic Athlete
I always have respected Olympic athletes, for they spend all their time training.
Victorious athletes were professionals in the sense that they lived off the glory of their achievement ever afterwards. Their hometowns might reward them with: free meals for the rest of their lives, honorary appointments, or leadership positions in the community. The victors were memorialized in statues and also in victory songs, and commissioned from famous poets.
Today, the Olympic Games are the world's largest pageant of athletic skill and competitive spirit. They are also displays of nationalism, commerce and politics. These two opposing elements of the Olympics are not a modern invention. The conflict between the Olympic movement's high ideals and the commercialism or political acts, which accompany the Games, has been noted since ancient times. The ancient Olympic Games, part of a major religious festival honoring Zeus, the chief Greek god, were the biggest events in their world.
An artist's impression of ancient Olympia
The Bases of Zanes at Olympia, Greece. Statues of ...
Baron Pierre de Coubertin, half-length portrait, s...They were the scenes of political rivalries between people from different parts of the Greek world, and the site of controversies, boasts, public announcements and humiliations. Ancient athletes competed as individuals, not on national teams, as in the modern Games. The emphasis on individual athletic achievement through public competition was related to the Greek ideal of excellence, called 'arete'. Aristocratic men who attained this ideal, through their outstanding words or deeds, won permanent glory and fame. Those who failed to measure up to this code feared public shame and disgrace.
Olympia was one of the oldest religious centers in the ancient Greek world. Since athletic contests were one way that the ancient Greeks honored their gods, it was logical to hold a recurring athletic competition at the site of a major temple. Also, Olympia is convenient geographically to reach by ship, which was...