The first written records of the ancient Olympic Games date to 776 B. C., when a cook named Coroebus won the only eventa 192meter footrace called the stade the. Find the latest sports news and articles on the NFL, MLB, NBA, NHL, NCAA college football, NCAA college basketball and more at ABC News. Stadion running race Wikipedia. Delivery Challan Template there. The stadion of ancient Nemea, Greece. Stadion or stade Ancient Greek was an ancient running event, part of the Ancient Olympic Games and the other Panhellenic Games. It was one of the five major Pentathlon events. It was the premier event of the gymnikos agon nude competition. From the years 7. Stade Race Ancient Olympic Games' title='Stade Race Ancient Olympic Games' />BC, the stadion was the only event that took place at the Olympic Games. The victor gave his name to the entire four year Olympiad, which has allowed scholars to know the names of nearly every ancient Olympic stadion winner. The stadion was named after the building in which it took place, also called the stadion. This word became stadium in Latin, which became the English word stadium. There were other types of running events, but the stadion was the most prestigious the winner was often considered to be the winner of an entire Games. Though a separate event, the stadion was also part of the ancient Pentathlon. At the Olympic Games, the stadion building was big enough for 2. Stade Race Ancient Olympic Games' title='Stade Race Ancient Olympic Games' />Olympia measures approximately 2. The race began with a trumpet blow, with officials the agonothetai at the starting blocks to make sure there were no false starts. Need For Speed Carbon Full Screen Patch on this page. There were also officials at the end to decide on a winner and to make sure no one had cheated. If the officials decided there was a tie, the race would be re run. Runners started the race from a standing position, probably with their arms stretched out in front of them, instead of starting in a crouch like modern runners. They ran naked on a packed earth track. By the fifth century, the track was marked by a stone starting line, the balbis. Advancements in this stone starting block led to it having a set of double grooves 1. Stade Race Ancient Olympic Games' title='Stade Race Ancient Olympic Games' />The design of these grooves were intended to give the runner leverage for his start. The winner of the stadion in the first Olympic Games was Coroebus of Elis. The race gave its name to the unit of length, the Stadion. See alsoeditReferencesedit ab. Miller, Stephen G. Ancient Greek Athletics. New Haven Yale University Press. Harris, H. A. 1. Greek Athletes and Athletics. London Hutchinson. Olympics History What to Know About the Ancient Games. In the walk up to the 2. Summer Olympics, which officially open in Rio on Friday, many fear a Russian doping scandal and infrastructure gaps in the Brazilian city have threatened to overshadow the games. But at least concerned observers can take comfort in one fact as long as the stadium has seats, and as long as a political leader doesnt pay off the athletes so he can personally win a gold medal, chances are Rio wont be as dramatic as the ancient Olympics were. TIME asked archaeology experts and historians to talk about the most surprising aspects of the first games, which took place at Olympia in Greece every four years between 7. B. C. and 3. 93 A. D. Heres what to know Why it started While sports fans might figuratively worship certain athletes at the Rio Olympics, actual religious worship was a key part of the ancient games. The games, held at a sanctuary site for Zeus in Olympia, were part of a religious festival held in honor of the God. Those who competed competed to please a god or goddess or a hero, says David Gilman Romano, the Karabots Professor of Greek Archaeology at the University of Arizona School of Anthropology who spoke to TIME by phone from the Mt. Lykaion Excavation and Survey Project in Acadia, the site of a possible precursor to the Olympic games. Why it stopped Religious conflict led to the abolishment of the games in 3. A. D., by which point the Roman empire controlled the region. Emperor Theodosius, a Christian, considered them pagan. The sports The 2. Olympic athletes will compete in 4. Olympics started with only one, the stade race, in 7. B. C., for which athletes would just run the length of the stadium. Then came the diaulos, in which athletes would do that twice. A long distance race was later added, and eventually, javelin, discus and long jump, said to have been accompanied by flute music. There were equestrian events like chariot racing, wrestling and boxing, and a wrestling boxing hybrid called pankration. While no eye gauging or biting was allowed, strangulation was fair game in pankration, says Tony Perrottet, author of The Naked Olympics The True Story of the Ancient Games. Archaeological evidence reveals that athletes coated their bodies in olive oil. Romano suspects that practice was useful for the wrestling and pankration so its less easy for someone to get a hold of your body or to protect skin while youre rolling around in the sand. Get your history fix in one place sign up for the weekly TIME History newsletter. The prizes Victors received olive wreaths cut from a sacred grove and cash awards from their home city, says Romano. Which is only fitting Athlete is an ancient Greek word for one who competes for a prize. One important distinction between the modern and ancient Olympic, says Andrew F. Stewart, a professor of Ancient Mediterranean Art and Archaeology at the University of California Berkeley, is that the ancient Greeks, while they kept track of who won, didnt seem to have kept records like fastest time. Open Source Network Mapping Program. The memorable athletes All male. Leonidas of Rhodes was arguably the best runner, winning 1. Olympics website recognizes Milon of Croton as a six time wrestling champion. Astylos was another acclaimed runner who won the stade and diaulos race in three Olympiads. When he ran for the city of Croton in the first race, residents erected a statue to him. But when he ran for its rival city in Sicily, Syracuse, his statue in Croton was demolished. Perhaps the most memorable of all wasnt even an athlete After Rome conquered Greece, Emperor Nero was desperate to become an Olympic victor. He paid off everyone so he wouldnt have to actually compete against anyone and won six olive wreaths and events in the four horse chariot race in 6. A. D., according to Romano. The women Married women were said to have been banned from watching the games. Legend has it that if any woman tried to sneak in, shed be thrown off Mount Typaeon. There was, however, essentially an Olympics for unmarried girls at the same stadium in Olympia. A committee of 1. Hera, and the women competed in three age categories. Stewart believes the purpose of those games was to make the girls stronger so theyd bear strong children. The fan experience It was like an extremely badly planned rock concert, the Woodstock of antiquity, according to Perrottet, who says to picture a stadium that held up to 4. Theres one hotel, no sanitation, people sleeping in tents, some al fresco, he says, and a dried up river where visitors may have relieved themselves. Diseases would spread through the crowd, so Zika wouldnt have seemed new, he says. There was an altar where people would make sacrifices to Zeus the averter of flies because the bugs were so annoying. The nudity Yes, the rumors are true. The track and field events were competed in naked, according to Stewart. Why The most common story says that Orsippos of Megara started the practice when his shorts fell off accidentally while he was running in some time around the 7th century B. C. The practice spread within a century across the Greek world, Stewart says, pointing out that the word gymnasium is derived from the ancient Greek word for naked, gymnos. We have no idea why they did it, he admits, but once the custom had taken root, it never dieduntil the end of antiquity, that is.