You Wouldnt Want to Be a Greek Athlete! (Revised Edition) Pdf

FREE YOU WOULDNT WANT TO BE A GREEK ATHLETE! (REVISED EDITION) PDF

Many runners are familiar with the story surrounding the origins of the modern marathon. As the well-worn legend goes, after the badly outnumbered Greeks somehow managed to drive back the Persians who had invaded the coastal plain of Marathon, an Athenian messenger named Pheidippides was dispatched from the battlefield to Athens to deliver the news You Wouldnt Want to Be a Greek Athlete! (Revised Edition) Greek victory. Rejoice, we conquer! And then he promptly collapsed from exhaustion and died. Turns out, however, the story is bigger than that. Much bigger. The whole idea of recreating an ancient voyage was fantastic to me. Looking for an excuse to visit the country of my ancestors, I signed up for the little-known Spartathlon inan ultramarathon from Athens to Sparta that roughly follows the path of the real Pheidippides. It felt like the right way to tell his story—the actual story of the marathon. Pheidippides was not a citizen athlete, but a hemerodromos: one of the men in the Greek military known as You Wouldnt Want to Be a Greek Athlete! (Revised Edition) runners. What they did was considered beyond competition, more akin to something sacred. Much is written about the training and preparation of Olympic athletes, and quite detailed accounts of the early Greek Games exist. Comparatively little is recorded of the mysterious hemerodromoi other than that they covered incredible distances on foot, over rocky and mountainous terrain, forgoing sleep if need be in carrying out their duties as messengers. Like Pheidippides, I run long distances—ultra-marathons. Years ago, on my 30th birthday, I ran 30 miles, completing a celebratory mile for each one of my unfathomable years of existence. That night forever altered the course of my life. I wanted to go farther, to try mile races even. And so I did. Training and life became inseparable, one and the same, intimately intertwined. Running these long distances was liberating. I felt a closeness to Pheidippides You Wouldnt Want to Be a Greek Athlete! (Revised Edition) I resolved to learn what really took place out there on the hillsides of ancient Greece. The story that everyone is familiar with is that of Pheidippides running from the battlefield of Marathon to Athens to announce Greek victory, a distance of about 25 miles. But first he ran from Athens to Sparta, to gather Spartan troops to help the Athenians in combat against the Persians. The distance was much more than a single marathon, more like six marathons stacked one upon the other, some miles. It is a demanding race with aggressive cutoff times. Runners must reach an ancient wall at Hellas Can factory, in Corinth— For comparison, many mile ultramarathons have cutoff times of 13 or 14 hours to complete the race in its entirety. At the start, I was surrounded by warriors huddled in the predawn mist at the foot of the Acropolis of Athens. For me the quest was deeply personal. I would finally run alongside my ancient brother, Pheidippides, albeit two and a half millennia in his wake. The starting gun went off, and away we went, into the streets crowded with morning traffic. Policemen were stationed at most of the main intersections to stop vehicles, but after crossing streets we runners had to run on the sidewalks, avoiding stray dogs, trash cans, and meandering pedestrians. Ancient Greek athletes were known to eat figs and other fruits, olives, dried meats, and a particular concoction composed of ground sesame seeds and honey mixed into a paste now called pasteli. Hemerodromoi also consumed handfuls of a small fruit known as hippophae rhamnoides Sea Buckthornthought to enhance endurance and stamina. This is how Pheidippides likely fueled during his run, and how I ran the race, too. Every few miles in the Spartathlon, there were aid stations overflowing You Wouldnt Want to Be a Greek Athlete! (Revised Edition) modern athletic foods, but no figs, olives, pasteli, or cured meat were to be had. I was supplied along the way by my crew, but by the time I picked up a bag of food in Corinth about 50 miles inthe once delectable pasteli now tasted like maple syrup mixed with talcum powder, chalky and repulsively sweet, and I could no longer tolerate the stuff like I had during my training runs. I tried gnawing on a piece of cured meat, but it was rubbery and the gristle got stuck between my teeth. I had several figs, which seemed to sit best in my stomach. About 50 miles later, after climbing Mount Parthenion and plummeting some 1, feet from the summit, I was eventually deposited in the remote outpost of Sangas, where my crew was waiting for me, asking me if I could eat. I You Wouldnt Want to Be a Greek Athlete! (Revised Edition) my head no, too exhausted to answer. I kept running. Dawn is the bewitching hour during an all-night run. Running through the Arcadian foothills, I fought to stay awake. Slowly, ever so gradually, my eyelids drooped downward. Still, I pressed on. When I reopened my eyes, I found myself in the middle of the road. What the heck? I thought. Then it happened again, and I realized I was sleep running. Given ancient Greek record, Pheidippides would have likely passed through this very same section of Arcadia in the early morning hours, just as I was doing then. To think that an ancient hemerodromos was running here 2, years ago fascinated me, and knowing that this was the land of my ancestors made the experience even more visceral. Just as I was fully realizing the depth of my connection to this place, a large diesel truck came barreling down the highway straight for me, thrusting me back into the present-day reality of the modern Spartathlon. I was gaining toward Tegea, which would mean about 30 more miles to go. Pheidippides ran the distance in two days. I reached the end in There is no finish line to cross, no mat to step over or tape to break; instead you conclude the journey by touching the feet of the towering bronze statue of King Leonidas in the center of town. The mayor of Sparta places an olive leaf wreath upon the head of each finisher and you are handed a golden goblet of water to drink from the Evrotas River, similar to how Olympian winners were honored in ancient times. He needed to present a compelling case for why the Spartans should join the Athenians in battle. Apparently his plea was convincing, for it worked. Pheidippides had to let his people know about the delay. So he did the unthinkable. After a brief catnap and some food, he awoke before sunrise and set out on the return trip—about miles back to Athens. With his constitution fairly compromised, Pheidippides found himself trudging back over Mount Parthenion, when suddenly he had a vision of the god Pan standing before him. With the face of a human but the body You Wouldnt Want to Be a Greek Athlete! (Revised Edition) horns of You Wouldnt Want to Be a Greek Athlete! (Revised Edition) goat, Pan was an unsettling figure to behold. According to the historian Herodotus, Pan explained that while he was loyal to the Athenians, they must worship him properly in order to preserve the alliance. Pan had great powers that could unravel the enemy, and he would bestow the Athenians with these abilities, but only if they were to revere him as they should. After he reached Athens, the city deployed You Wouldnt Want to Be a Greek Athlete! (Revised Edition), adult male Athenian citizens to Marathon to fend off 60, Persians. Despite being outnumbered, the Greeks were in an advantageous battle position, so General Miltiades, the leader of the Athenian troops, had the men hunker down to await the arrival of the Spartans. But the next day Miltiades got intelligence that the Persians had sent their cavalry back to their ships and were planning to split into two groups and surround the Greeks. The most prudent strategy would be to retreat to Athens to defend the city and wait for the Spartans to join the fight. He decided that the Athenians would wake early the next morning and attack the current Persian position while their horsemen were absent and before they had time to carry out their plan. If Pheidippides had failed in his mile ultramarathon, what has been called the most critical battle in history might have been lost. Thus was the battle ultimately waged and won at Marathon. Eventually, the Spartans arrived in Athens and learned of the outcome. Before they got there, a messenger—but not Pheidippides, according to scholars—had run 25 miles to deliver the good news. So why do we run Why are we not running some miles, the distance Pheidippides ran from Athens to Sparta and back? Why highlight the shorter run when a much greater feat occurred? Perhaps because in that final jaunt from the battlefield of Marathon to Athens, the mystic messenger supposedly died at the conclusion. Published by Rodale. Trail Running. United States. Type keyword s to search. Today's Top Stories. The 10 Best Lightweight Running Shoes. Jonathan Sprague. Vladimir Rys. The start of the Spartathlon. Yannis Dimotsis. Running the Silicon Valley Marathon in a toga. Kate Astle. Generic Royalty Free Stock. After a nap, he set out on the return trip—about miles back to Athens. This content is created and maintained by a third party, and imported onto this page to help users provide their email addresses. You may be able to find more information about this and similar content at piano. Advertisement - Continue Reading Below. The Real Pheidippides Story | Runner's World

The athletes used boxing and wrestling techniques, but also others, such as kicking and holds, locks and chokes on the ground. In Greek mythology, it was said that the heroes Heracles and Theseus invented pankration as a result of using both wrestling and boxing in their confrontations with opponents. Theseus was said to have utilized his extraordinary pankration skills to defeat the dreaded Minotaur in the Labyrinth. Heracles was said to have subdued the Nemean lion using pankration, and was often depicted in ancient artwork doing that. The mainstream academic view has been that pankration developed in the archaic Greek society of the 7th century BC, whereby, as the need for expression in violent sport increased, pankration filled a niche of "total contest" that neither boxing nor wrestling could. There is evidence that, although knockouts were common, most pankration competitions were decided on the basis of submission giving up. Pankratiasts were highly skilled grapplers and were extremely effective in applying a variety of takedownschokes and joint locks. In extreme cases a pankration competition You Wouldnt Want to Be a Greek Athlete! (Revised Edition) even result in the death of one of the opponents, which was considered a win. However, pankration was more than just an event in the athletic competitions of the ancient Greek world; it was also part of the arsenal of Greek soldiers — including the famous Spartan hoplites and Alexander the Great 's Macedonian phalanx. It is said that the Spartans at their immortal stand at Thermopylae fought with their bare hands and teeth once their swords and spears broke. The feats of the ancient pankratiasts became legendary in the annals of Greek athletics. Stories abound of past champions who were considered invincible beings. ArrhichionDioxippusPolydamas of Skotoussa and Theogenes often referred to as Theagenes of Thasos after the first century AD are among the most highly recognized names. Their accomplishments defying the odds You Wouldnt Want to Be a Greek Athlete! (Revised Edition) some of the most inspiring of ancient Greek athletics and they served as inspiration to the Hellenic world for centuries, as Pausanias[8] the ancient traveller and writer indicates when he re-tells these stories in his narrative of his travels around Greece. As an admired champion, he naturally became part of the circle of Alexander the You Wouldnt Want to Be a Greek Athlete! (Revised Edition). In that context, he accepted a challenge from one of Alexander's most skilled soldiers named Coragus to fight in front of Alexander and the troops in armed combat. While Coragus fought with weapons and full armour, Dioxippus showed up armed only with a club and defeated Coragus without killing him, making use of his pankration skills. Later, however, Dioxippus was framed for theft, which led him to commit suicide. His opponent had locked him in a chokehold and Arrhichion, desperate to loosen it, broke his opponent's toe some records say his ankle. The opponent nearly passed out from pain and submitted. As the referee raised Arrhichion's hand, it was discovered that he had died from the chokehold. His body was crowned with the olive wreath and returned to Phigaleia as a hero. By the Imperial Periodthe Romans had adopted the Greek combat sport spelled in Latin as pancratium into their Games. Pankration itself was an event in the Olympic Games for some 1, years. He wrote that his technique of wrestling was similar to the pankration of Sostratus the Sicyonianbecause Leontiscus did not know how to throw his opponents, but won by bending their fingers. There were neither weight divisions nor time limits in pankration competitions. However, there were two or three age groups in the competitions of antiquity. In the Olympic Games specifically there were only two such age groups:. The pankration event for boys was established at the Olympic Games in B. In pankration competitions, referees were armed with stout rods or switches to enforce the rules. In fact, there were only two rules regarding combat: no eye You Wouldnt Want to Be a Greek Athlete! (Revised Edition) or biting. The judges appear, however, to have had the right to stop a contest under certain conditions and award the victory to one of the two athletes; they could also declare the contest a tie. Pankration competitions were held in tournaments, most being outside of the Olympics. Each tournament began with a ritual which would decide how the tournament would take place. Grecophone satirist Lucian describes the process in detail:. A sacred silver urn is brought, in which they have put bean-size lots. On two lots an alpha is inscribed, on two a beta, and on another two a gamma, and so on. If there are more athletes, two lots always have the same letter. Each athlete comes forth, prays to Zeus, puts his hand into the urn and draws out a lot. Following him, the other athletes do the same. Whip bearers are standing next to the athletes, You Wouldnt Want to Be a Greek Athlete! (Revised Edition) their hands and not allowing them to read the letter they have drawn. When everyone has drawn a lot, the alytarch, You Wouldnt Want to Be a Greek Athlete! (Revised Edition) 1] or one of the Hellanodikai walks around and looks at the lots of the athletes as they stand in a circle. He then joins the athlete holding the alpha to the other who has drawn the alpha for wrestling or pankration, the one who has the beta to the other with the beta, and the other matching inscribed lots in the same manner. The same athlete could be an ephedros more than once, and this could of course be of great advantage to him as the ephedros would be spared the wear and tear of the rounds imposed on his opponent s. There is evidence that the major Games in Greek antiquity easily had four tournament rounds, that is, a field of sixteen athletes. Xanthos mentions the largest number—nine tournament rounds. If these tournament rounds were held in one competition, up to contestants would participate in the tournament, which is difficult to believe for a single contest. Therefore, one can hypothesize that the nine rounds included those in which the athlete participated during regional qualification competitions that were held before the major games. Such preliminary contests were held prior to the major games to determine who would participate in the main event. This makes sense, as the 15 —20 athletes competing in the major games could not have been the only available contestants. There is clear evidence of this in Platowho refers to competitors in the Panhellenic Gameswith opponents numbering in the thousands. Moreover, in the first century A. The athletes engaged in a pankration competition—i. There were also strategies documented in ancient literature that were You Wouldnt Want to Be a Greek Athlete! (Revised Edition) to be used to obtain an advantage over the competitor. For illustration purposes, below are examples of striking and grappling techniques including examples of countersas well as strategies and tactics, that have been identified from the ancient sources visual arts or literature. The pankratiast faces his opponent with a nearly frontal stance—only slightly turned sideways. This is an intermediate directional positioning, between the wrestler's more frontal positioning and the boxer's more sideways stance and is consistent with the need to preserve both the option of using striking and protecting the center line of the body and the option of applying grappling techniques. Thus, the left side of the body is slightly forward of the right side of the body and the left hand is more forward than the right one. Both hands are held high so that the tips of the fingers are at the level of the hairline or just below the top of the head. The hands are partially open, the fingers are relaxed, and the palms are facing naturally forward, down, and slightly towards each other. The front arm is nearly fully extended but not entirely so; the rear You Wouldnt Want to Be a Greek Athlete! (Revised Edition) is more cambered than the front arm, but more extended than a modern-day boxer's rear arm. The back of the athlete is somewhat rounded, but not as much as a wrestler's would be. The body is only slightly leaning forward. The weight is virtually all on the back right foot with the front left foot touching the ground with the ball of the foot. It is a stance in which the athlete is ready at the same time to give a kick with the front leg as well as defend against the opponent's low level kicks by lifting the front knee and blocking. The back leg is bent for stability and power and is facing slightly to the side, to go with the slightly sideways body position. The head and torso are behind the protecting two upper limbs and front leg. Pankration uses boxing punches and other ancient boxing hand strikes. Strikes delivered with the legs were an integral part of pankration and one of its most characteristic features. Kicking well was a great advantage to the pankratiast. Moreover, in an accolade to the fighting prowess of the pankratiast Glykon from Pergamo, the athlete is described as "wide foot". The characterization comes actually before the reference to his "unbeatable hands", implying at least as crucial a role for strikes with the feet as with the hands in pankration. That proficiency in kicking could carry the pankratiast to victory is You Wouldnt Want to Be a Greek Athlete! (Revised Edition) in a sarcastic passage of Galen, where he awards the winning prize in pankration to a donkey because of its excellence in kicking. This type of kick is mentioned by Lucian. Counter : The athlete sidesteps the oncoming kick to the inside of the opponent's leg. The athlete executing the counter has to lean forward to avoid hand strikes by the opponent. This counter is shown on a Panathenaic amphora now in Leiden. In another counter, the athlete sidesteps, but now to the outside of the oncoming kick and grasps the inside of the kicking leg from behind the knee with his front hand overhand grip and pulls up, which tends to unbalance the opponent so that he falls backward as the athlete advances. The back hand can be used for striking the opponent while he is preoccupied maintaining his balance. The athlete is behind the opponent and has him leaning down, with the right knee of the opponent on the ground. The athlete has the opponent's right arm straightened out and extended maximally backward at the shoulder joint. With the opponent's right arm across his own torso, the athlete uses his left hand to keep the pressure on the opponent's right arm by grabbing and pressing down on it just above the wrist. The right hand of the athlete is pressing down at the side of the head of the opponent, thus not permitting him to rotate to his right to relieve the pressure on his shoulder. As the opponent could escape by lowering himself closer to the ground and rolling, the athlete steps with his left leg over the left leg of the opponent and wraps his foot around the ankle of the opponent stepping on his instep, while pushing his body weight on the back of the opponent. In this technique, the position of the bodies is very similar to the one described just above. The athlete executing the technique is standing over his opponent's back, while the latter is down on his right knee. The left leg of the athlete is straddling the left thigh of the opponent—the left knee of the opponent is not on the floor—and is trapping the left foot of the You Wouldnt Want to Be a Greek Athlete! (Revised Edition) by stepping on it. This creates an arm bar on the right arm with the pressure now being mostly on the elbow. The fallen opponent cannot relieve it, because his You Wouldnt Want to Be a Greek Athlete! (Revised Edition) is being shoved the opposite way by the left hand of the athlete executing the technique. In this technique, the athlete is again behind his opponent, has the left arm of his opponent trapped, and is pulling back on his right arm. The trapped left arm is bent, with the fingers and palm trapped inside the armpit of the athlete. To trap the left You Wouldnt Want to Be a Greek Athlete! (Revised Edition), the athlete has pushed from outside his own left arm underneath the left elbow of the opponent. The athlete's left hand ends up pressing down on the scapula region of his opponent's back. This position does not permit the opponent to pull out his hand from the athlete's armpit and puts pressure on the left shoulder. The right arm of the athlete is pulling back at the opponent's right wrist or forearm. The athlete is in full contact on top of the opponent, with his right leg in front of the right leg of the opponent to block him from escaping by rolling forward. Pankratiasts would refer to two different kinds of athletes; "the one who wrestles with the heel" and "the one who wrestles with the ankle" which indicates early knowledge of what is now known as the Straight Ankle-Lock, and the Heel Hook. This type of choke can be applied with the athlete being in front or behind his opponent. Regarding the hand grip to be used with this choke, the web area between the thumb and the index finger is to be quite high up the neck and the thumb is bent inward and downward, "reaching" behind the Adam's apple of the opponent. Ancient athletes did something truly shocking with their genitals | Popular Science

News broke last week that despite a state-sponsored doping scheme, the Russian delegation would not be wholly disqualified from the Olympics in Rio de Janeiro. Those without evidence of doping, it seems, will be able to compete — a far more lenient response from the International Olympic Committee than many might have expected. And yet the athletes had competing interests. Forbes, a professor of Classics at Ohio State University, in That said, ancient Greeks proved to be creative in their competitiveness. Some attempted to jinx athletes to prevent their success. For instance, strips of lead You Wouldnt Want to Be a Greek Athlete! (Revised Edition) inscribed with the curse, then folded up and placed in the floor at a critical part of the athletic facility. Judging from the writings of the second-century A. The first Games are said to have been held in B. References to legendary instances of cheating have survived the centuries. In Greece today, pedestals that once held great statues still line pathways that led to ancient stadiums. But these were not statues that heralded athletic feats, rather they served as reminders of athletes and coaches who cheated. According to Patrick Hunt, a professor of archaeology at Stanford University, these monuments were funded by levies placed on athletes or on the city-states themselves by the ancient Olympic Council. Then there was direct bribery between athletes or between those close to the athletes to influence the results. In B. All four men were heavily fined, and up went six bronze statues of Zeus, four of which had inscriptions about the scandal and a warning to future athletes. And, it turns out, spectators did some cheating of their own, too. Forbes makes note of an instance in which officials voted to crown a member of their own city-state, an obvious conflict of interests. The judges were fined, but their decision was upheld. Entire city-states You Wouldnt Want to Be a Greek Athlete! (Revised Edition) get into trouble as well. He won, and in his elation, revealed who his true charioteer was. He was flogged and the victory was ultimately recorded as going to Thebes, with no mention of his name, which could be seen as an additional punishment some records of Olympic victories have been discovered. Russian athletes may be banned from Brazil because of cheating, but people have always been looking for performance enhancing tricks. Continue or Give a Gift. Privacy Terms of Use Sign up. SmartNews History. History Archaeology. World History. Science Age of Humans. Future of Space Exploration. Human Behavior. Our Planet. Earth Optimism Summit. Ingenuity Ingenuity Awards. The Innovative Spirit. Travel Virtual Travel. Travel With Us. Featured: Travel to Alaska. At the Smithsonian Visit. New Research. Curators' Corner. Ask Smithsonian. Vote Now! Photo of the Day. Video Ingenuity Awards. Smithsonian Channel. Video Contest. Games Daily Sudoku. Universal Crossword. Daily Word Search. Mah Jong Quest. Subscribe Top Menu Current Issue. Archaeology U. History World History Video Newsletter. Like this article? Comment on this Story. Last Name. First Name. Address 1. Address You Wouldnt Want to Be a Greek Athlete! (Revised Edition). Enter your email address.