Origin of Olympic Games

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The Olympic games today are very different than what they were when they first originated. The Olympic games started in Ancient Greece. Exactly what led to creation of the Olympic games is unknown. However, we do know that the Olympic games were held in Olympia and were a direct replica of the Greek society’s values and beliefs. Physical fitness and mental discipline were very important to the Greeks society, and they felt that Zeus, the greatest of their gods proved to excel in that area. The Olympic games were assembled every four years between August 6th and September 19th. The period in-between the games where called an Olympiad. The earliest competition that was recorded occurred in 776 B.C. It contained only one event, the sprint race, which was known as the stade, and was 192 meters long. The word stade comes from the track where the race was first held. A cook named Coroebus took the victory and was the first champion of the Olympics ever. In the initial centuries of the Olympic competition, the contests where held on one day. Later the competition was spread out into four consecutive days, and a fifth day for the award ceremony. In most events the athletes participated in the nude. Throughout the centuries scholars have tried to discover the reasoning behind this. Theories have been stated that, to be nude in public demonstrated self-control. Also ideas like, nudity claims the rite to passage or ceremonial event and that public nudity was a kind of costume of the upper class. This is very strange because of how nudity in public is seen as nowadays. Today, if you are nude in public you can be arrested and looked at as very poorly. Back then it was the complete opposite; being nude in pubic was looked at as high upon. In the middle of the 2nd century bc, Greece lost its independence to Rome, and the support of the Olympic games in Olympia slowly

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