Historia d los juegos olimpicos

History of the Olympic Games

|Paragraph 1 |The Olympics of Ancient Greece |
| | |
| |Although records cannot verify games earlier than 776 BC, thecontests in Homer's Iliad indicate a much |
| |earlier competitive tradition. Held in honor of Zeus in the city of Olympia for four days every fourth summer,|
| |the Olympic games were the oldest and most prestigious of four great ancient Greek athletic festivals, which |
| |also included the Pythian games at Delphi, the Isthmian atCorinth, and the Nemean at Argos (the Panathenaea |
| |at Athens was also important). The Olympics reached their height in the 5th-4th cent. BC; thereafter they |
| |became more and more professionalized until, in the Roman period, they provoked much censure. They were |
| |eventually discontinued by Emperor Theodosius Iof Rome, who condemned them as a pagan spectacle, at the end |
| |of the 4th cent. AD. |
|Paragraph 2 |Among the Greeks, the games were nationalistic in spirit; states were said to have been prouder of Olympic |
| |victories than of battles won.Women, foreigners, slaves, and dishonored persons were forbidden to compete. |
| |Contestants were required to train faithfully for 10 months before the games, had to remain 30 days under the |
| |eyes of officials in Elis, who had charge of the games, and had to take an oath that they had fulfilled the |
| |training requirementsbefore participating. At first, the Olympic games were confined to running, but over |
| |time new events were added: the long run (720 BC), when the loincloth was abandoned and athletes began |
| |competing naked; the pentathlon, which combined running, the long jump, wrestling, and discus and spear |
| |throwing (708BC); boxing (688 BC); chariot racing (680 BC); the pankration (648 BC), involving boxing and |
| |wrestling contests for boys (632 BC); and the foot race with armor (580 BC). |
|Paragraph 3 |Greek women, forbidden not only to participate in but also to watch the Olympic games, held games of their |
||own, called the Heraea. Those were also held every four years but had fewer events than the Olympics. Known to|
| |have been conducted as early as the 6th cent. BC, the Heraea games were discontinued about the time the Romans|
| |conquered Greece. Winning was of prime importance in both male and female festivals. The winners of the |
||Olympics (and of the Heraea) were crowned with chaplets of wild olive, and in their home city-states male |
| |champions were also awarded numerous honors, valuable gifts, and privileges. |
|Paragraph 4 |The Modern Olympics |
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| |The modern revival of the Olympic games is due in a large measure to the efforts of Pierre, baron de |
| |Coubertin, of France. They were held, appropriately enough, in Athens in 1896, but that meeting and the...