What kind of games were in the first ancient olympic

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All inquiries should be made to the copyright owner at us kidcyber. Ancient Olympic Games. The first Olympic Games were held in Greece in ancient times. The first Games were held about years ago. They were held every four years. Only men could compete in the Games They were held at Olympia, a sacred place in Greece where people worshipped their gods. The Games at Olympia were held in honour of the king of the gods, Zeus.

Women not included: at first! Athletes at the ancient Games were nude. Five days of events On the first day the competitors and their events were announced to the spectators. They agreed, and the first modern Olympics were held in the Greek capital, Athens, in This was also part of the pentathlon, and gave points for distance, not for aim. The javelin was the same height as the athlete and the diameter of a finger. The goal here was to knock down the opponent using different holds or locks.

You might think of this as the predecessor to mixed martial arts. Contestants could defeat their opponent with any kind of move, including dislocation. Combat sometimes ended with the death of one of the athletes. This is similar to modern boxing and was introduced to the ancient Olympic Games in the year BC.

The rules only allowed competitors to strike with their fists. At first, they played with bare fists, and later with gloves. This was one of the equestrian events and it took place in the hippodrome.

The chariot had two wheels and was driven by a standing charioteer who held a whip in one hand and the reigns in the other. The chariot could be pulled by two or four horses. There were other kinds of races as well, including the kalpe, which involved the driver getting down from the chariot and finishing the last lap on foot. Many events, including sprinting and wrestling, are still part of the modern games.

Other sports such as chariot racing are history. There were no weight classes, no time limits, and only two rules: no biting and no eye gouging. Competitors fought until one gave up or died. Hm … wonder why this sport disappeared? The Romans eventually banned the Olympics in A. But the games were revived in in Athens, Greece, and have been celebrated every four years since.

And in , the Winter Olympics were added to showcase chillier sports such as cross-country skiing, speed skating, and ice hockey. Today thousands of athletes from hundreds of countries all over the world compete for the gold or silver or bronze in the summer and winter events. The word itself means "five competitions," and athletes were required to participate in all five events — all held on the same day — in order to be eligible to win, and it's still not entirely clear how winners were chosen.

It's also not clear what order the events were held, and while some might seem kind of familiar, there were differences to modern versions. The long jump event was similar, but given that it was accompanied by flute music, that's led to the suggestion that there was something other than jumping involved.

They also jumped carrying massive stone or metal weights called halteres, and the rationale behind those is debated, too. Then, there were the foot races, which was a pretty straightforward jaunt around the track, and the discus throw, which is similar to today's discus, but without the spin. Athletes also competed in the javelin throw, which was just not just on distance but on accuracy as well.

The fifth sport was wrestling, and there were two different versions. In one, the goal was to throw the opponent onto the ground, and the other was grappling until someone tapped out via OpenLearn. Aristotle lauded the abilities of pentathletes in particular, saying via the Perseus Project they were "the most beautiful. In , The Chronicle of the Horse reported that it was a huge deal that a year-old mule was competing in the U.

Dressage Finals, with his or, at least, his owners' eyes on the Olympics. It wasn't the first time that mules — the offspring of a female horse and a male donkey — have been included in the Olympics. For a brief time, they had their own sport. It was called apene, and it was essentially racing mule-drawn carts. It's not as odd as it sounds at first: Mules, after all, had a pretty impressive connection to the Olympics as the reported mount of choice for Herakles. The event was introduced in BC, but ended in BC, and it's not clear why.

Writing for Academia , Theodore Antikas suggests that it came to an end because the area's best mule breeders weren't in Greece, and when the home team consistently lost, the event was phased out. Greece, it turns out, had been anti-mule for a long time. By the time the Olympics rolled around, there was still an already-old idea that cross-breeding a horse and a donkey resulted in an abomination, and it was said that the offspring of the pairing would be cursed.

It's one of those things that sure, people said it Was it? Sometimes, olde-timey people believed it was better to be safe than sorry when it came to curses.

Many Olympic sports have their roots in war and the military. Even dressage — or "horse dancing" — has military roots, says The World. While today, it's fancy-looking people putting their horses through unnatural-looking movements, the ability to stop on a dime or leap into a gallop was once the difference between life and death for both.

It was essentially a foot race where competitors ran nude, except for full military graves, along with a helmet and shield. The extra equipment meant they were running while carrying about an extra 50 pounds, requiring a whole new level of endurance. The very first winner of the hoplitodromos was a man named Damaretos, according to the University of Pennsylvania Center for Ancient Studies. He also won in BC, and he was honored with a statue in Olympia.

Historians know, says KULeuven , because when Pausanias — a Greek writer and geographer who died in — was documenting the statues of Olympia, he noted the statue of Damaretos and the fact that the shield he'd carried in the race was still there.