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No records were broken at the Olympics in the ancient era

In the thousand years of the existence of the Olympic Games in ancient times, each competition stood on its own and the winner of it received honor and a lot of money from the polis from which it came, not because of the lack of technical means to measure times or any other index, but because breaking records was considered to provoke the gods

Tokyo Olympics 2020. Illustration: depositphotos.com
Tokyo Olympics 2020. Illustration: depositphotos.com

In the current Olympic Games, in the Tokyo Games, as well as in world, local and even mini-local competitions, it is said in schools, a notable and famous achievement is embodied in what we are talking about - breaking the record of his predecessors, or those of his predecessors, in various fields and especially in the field of light and heavy athletics. The winners, especially in the Olympic, global and even local competitions, win world fame, which includes valuable prizes.

The Olympic Games that officially began in 776 BC and were finally interrupted in 393 AD, the Roman-Christian emperor signed their sentence due to their connection to paganism, thus ending 292 ancient Olympics until, as is known, their renewal in 1896 in Athens.

A lot has been written about the context and the relationship between the ancient Olympic games and the modern ones, and with deep forgiveness, they line up with populism, misrepresentations and other mistakes.

In this short list, I would like to refer to the matter of record breaking in the ancient Olympic Games, in light of the extensive, almost colorful, exciting and no doubt tearful publicity of record breaking in the modern games.

Let's start with a significant note - in light of the ultra-modern measurements in the modern games, such as mainly the photographs and the other technical measures and indices, it is possible to determine times, distances, mistakes, distance intervals (such as the "photo-finish") and more in almost all games and competitions with great precision. And what was in the ancient era?

And in the early Olympic competitions, it was possible to measure distances such as in the long jump pit or in the discus throw and the javelin throw, to measure victories such as in the boxing and wrestling events, to measure achievement margins such as in the pentathlon (fight of five) and more of this kind. Of course, execution times and more were not measured, and the main thing, as strange as this would be - no records were broken at all, not in advertising of course and not in any public, urban echoes.

It was of course possible to record achievements in the field of jumping, throwing the javelin and the discus, but by definition these were neither recorded nor published. sounds strange? Definately not. To examine this we must delve into the philosophy and thoughts of the creators of the various branches, which connects well into the veins of the Hellenic/Greek world. Let's do it very briefly: the ancient Olympic games were held in honor of Zeus, the head of the family of gods, just as the Pythian/Delphian games were held in honor of Apollo, as well as the Isthmian games and more of that kind. Because of this, the competitions were conducted, starting with the opening and closing ceremony, the oath of the athletes in front of the huge statue of Zeus (which is considered one of the seven wonders of the world) and in general during the competitions - they all wore and covered the outside and the inside with a deep religious-ritual mantle. The whole atmosphere was steeped in religiosity/rituals and spilled over right into the competitions themselves, and even every athlete from east and west, north and south was protected by a religious "protective suit" and woe to those who hurt him. The month before the games (they lasted only five days) and after the closing ceremony, which was called "the month of peace and the absence of wars" were immersed in deep holiness and woe to the country that violated the aforementioned peace. This was punished unusually and severely.

So what about the records, some of which may have been "broken", and at least in the branches mentioned above, and it is true, in the odes of Pindarus or in the essays of Philostratus and others, few records are mentioned, most of them imaginary and delusional between them and reality there was a deep chasm, such as in the long jump pit, when every An athlete held in his hands before the jump, and without running or accelerating beforehand, a pair of weights, clay or metal "iron" figures, ranging from 1 kg to 5 kg, and intended to illustrate the weight of the fighter's "suit" and part of his equipment.

Why were records not measured in the ancient Olympics

Why is it not possible to "break" records in the ancient Olympic sports events? The answer is as follows: First, each competition stood on its own, sacred to one central god or another (Zeus in the Olympic case) and each achievement came "thanks" to the god's involvement. If so, breaking a record means breaking something in God's power and faith in him. Moreover, each competition stood as unique and special, which should not be seen as some kind of target for beating and trampling in general, harming the winning athlete; Second - the Greek ideology and philosophy vigorously and desperately protested against the transformation of physical activity, sports, into physical and mental frenzy that is abrasive and harmful to health, all of which is designed to break some kind of imaginary records. And from that, what will really happen later will turn (somewhere in the fourth and third BC and due to Roman influence) the competitiveness from amateurs to professionalism. The main idea was - "Dear Helen, train as an integral part of the Zeus cult and pay homage to you and your city, the city of the polis, which sends you to competitions"; Thirdly - as a kind of circle closes the first reason. On the imaginary Olympic "podium", they did not stand, there stood three Olympic athletes in the ranking of "gold", "silver" and "bronze", but only one winner, in the examination of the choice of the gods and Zeus (the ranking, by the way, for the first three places was initiated by Herod In connection with the Caesarea Games in 12 BC in the number of the 192nd Olympiad). So there is no registration for breaking records, neither in those games nor in those that will be held in 4 years; Fourth - the winner won a wreath braided from the branches of the olive tree, a tree dedicated to Zeus. And only a few days passed after the competition and the foreigner became weak, he withered away. The idea is summed up in the message - don't brag about the victory (a "trophy" or "medal" has no place in the closet), prepare for the next competitions in 4 years. The breaking of the record may be folded into the ambition to emerge as the winner in the following games as well;

No, we are not innocent. These principles and ideas did not last long. Already in the Hellenic Olympic Games, and especially from the end of the fifth century BC onwards. An Olympic winner was highly honored in the city of Polis from which he came. So far everything is fine. But the city that brought that athlete to prominence not only took care of all his needs, and that's all right, it flooded him with huge wealth and resulted in many Hellenic athletes moving and wandering around the cities of Polis with the aim of winning a "foreign" victory and loads of drachmas. And the rest... is history.

Editor's note

A few days ago the Israeli gymnast Artyom Dolfigiat won a gold medal in the floor exercise in gymnastics. He did not go into details, but a similar achievement would not have earned him even a bronze medal at the Rio 2016 Olympics. He was lucky and the opponents this time were weaker, and here, instead of his father being happy about the unprecedented achievement, he claimed in a live conversation with his son that he could have done a good exercise More. Here is an example of the problematic nature of measuring records (Avi Blizovsky).

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Comments

  1. There were "Olympic Games" at the Hayunim.
    Between one round and the next, there was a four-year "Olympics".

  2. Today the Olympics are more similar to the Roman gladiators, only that instead of using forced slaves, free people, even mostly from the upper middle class, enter voluntarily.
    While their parents pay a large fortune from a young age, and the greater price comes at the expense of the athlete after retirement.
    Most of the time he discovers that there is really no value to what he has done until now, many times they find themselves with a broken body and poor education (many times less than 12 years of schooling while most of their peers already have an academic degree) a small part of them are suitable for training new generations, but they are not either. Get paid a lot often. All this is greatly reinforced in esoteric sports.

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