The Huffmanian Observer August 28,2009
Extra! Extra! Read all about it!Hello my name is Zoraida and I am a WRAL news reporter,and I recently visited Greece. Over the time that I was there I discovered that most of us Americans(including me) don't know enough about the ancient Greece sports. So I'm going to give you a bit of the information that I've learned while away.
I found out much about the ancient sports through the Greeks literature and art.
(In the second photo) A young Athenian noblemen defended his political reputation by entering his 7 horses into the Olympic chariot race. The high amount of entries made both the Aristocrat and Athens look very wealthy and powerful.
So one reason why the Greece race would play certain sports was to make themselves and their country look better.
Now when discovered this I thought to myself, "If they play to represent and make their country look better, what happens when they lose." I searched and searched for the answer, and I found it. Losing was a disgrace. Many losing athletes going back to their city-states in humiliation, took back roads so they weren't seen.
Olympic games had strict rules and regulations:
- Only free men who spoke Greece could compete and they held their games at one location instead of moving around to different sites every time.
- Any man who had committed a crime or stolen from the temple could not participate.
- Married women could not enter the Olympic stadium or attend the games.
- Slaves and non-Greeks could not participate
- Once the athelete joined he could not withdraw from the competition, every athelete had to participate.
- Etc.
For the games the contestants would to train to compete, here are one the training grounds at Olympia. In the second photo below is a veiw of Ancient Olympia where it all began.
Ancient Olympic Games were an athletic and religious celebration in the Greek town of Olympia from as early as 776 BC to 393 AD.
Well I've given all the information I have discovered overtime and I will continue to research more, I suggest you do the same.
