COLUMBUS, Ohio (WCMH) — As the world converges on Paris for the 33rd Olympiad, it’s a reminder of the ancient heritage of the Olympic movement.
It starts with the term “Olympiad.” It was how the ancient Greeks would mark a period of four years, and it’s the schedule they followed in the creation of the ancient games.
Those games laid the foundation for what we know today as the most prominent sporting event on Earth. And in Greece, it’s a source of national pride.
“The Greeks view the Olympics as something which is very much tangibly theirs,” said Alexander Kitroeff, an Athens native and Greek history professor and author. “It’s part of their heritage.”
The Olympics began in the 8th century B.C. as a religious festival honoring Zeus, the king of the Gods. Olympia was the small village where the Greeks built the Temple of Zeus, one of the seven wonders of the ancient world. 40-thousand Greeks would gather in Olympia for the celebration.
“It really was a sanctuary and for most of its history, there was no permanent dwelling there during the rest of the 4-year Olympic cycle,” said Tom Hawkins, an Associate Professor of Classics at Ohio State, and an author focused on Greek and athletic history.
The earliest versions of the ancient games consisted of a single athletic event, called a Stadion. It was a 200-yard sprint on the floor of what was the original Olympic Stadium. A series of hillsides surrounded the original dirt track, where only one winner was celebrated. That winner received an Olive branch crown, and the games were named for them. There were no second or third-place awards. Only men competed in the original games.
“There was really no concept of a team sport in ancient Greece, in part because there was a pretty clear ideology that the reason that we’re going to have a competition is to find out who is the best,” Hawkins said.
In 391 A.D., so-called pagan rituals like the Olympics were banned by the Roman Emperor. The games vanished for more than 1,500 years.
“There really is no way in which you can have an Olympics in which you celebrate the athleticism without having it be associated with Zeus,” said Hawkins. “So it really was terminated for what you might call theological policy.”
Hundreds of thousands of visitors travel to Olympia each year to visit the site of the ruins. Olympia has endured earthquakes and other natural disasters, yet some original structures are still standing.
Among the other lasting traditions established in Olympia was the use of torches—an Olympic flame. In April, the Olympic Torch relay began with the lighting of the flame in Olympia. The torch relay then extended through more than 400 towns in France. The torch will arrive at the opening ceremony Friday in Paris.
“It was the Greeks who had this idea that, that you could not only just light the flame but have a relay from ancient Olympia,” said Kitroeff.
Underscoring that universal message of love, peace and friendship of peoples, these ancient symbols that somehow inspire and unite us in a modern world that’s really something unique.”