The inaugural Games of the modern Olympics were attended by as many as 280 athletes, all male, coming from 12 countries. The athletes competed in 43 events covering athletics (track and field), cycling, swimming, gymnastics, weightlifting, wrestling, fencing, shooting, and tennis. A festive atmosphere prevailed as foreign athletes were greeted with parades and banquets. A crowd estimated at more than 60,000 attended the opening day of competition. Members of the royal family of Greece played an important role in the organization and management of the Games and were regular spectators over the 10 days of the Olympics. Hungary sent the only national team; most of the foreign athletes were well-to-do college students or members of athletic clubs attracted by the novelty of the Olympics.
The track-and-field events were held at the Panathenaic Stadium. The stadium, originally built in 330 bce, had been excavated but not rebuilt for the 1870 Greek Olympics and lay in disrepair before the 1896 Olympics, but through the direction and financial aid of Georgios Averoff, a wealthy Egyptian Greek, it was restored with white marble. The ancient track had an unusually elongated shape with such sharp turns that runners were forced to slow down considerably in order to stay in their lanes. The track-and-field competition was dominated by athletes from the United States, who won 9 of the 12 events. The swimming events were held in the cold currents of the Bay of Zea. Two of the four swimming races were won by Alfréd Hajós of Hungary. Paul Masson of France won three of the six cycling events.
The 1896 Olympics featured the first marathon. The race, conceived by Frenchman Michel Bréal, followed the legendary route of Pheidippides, a trained runner who was believed to have been sent from the plain of Marathon to Athens to announce the defeat of an invading Persian army in 490 bce. The race became the highlight of the Games and was won by Spyridon Louis, a Greek whose victory earned him the lasting admiration of his nation.
List of sports
- Athletics (Track and Field)
- Cycling (Road and Track)
- Fencing
- Gymnastics
- Shooting
- Swimming
- Tennis
- Weightlifting
- Wrestling (Greco-Roman)
cycling
Cycling as a sport officially began on May 31, 1868, with a 1,200-metre (1,312-yard) race between the fountains and the entrance of Saint-Cloud Park (near Paris). The winner was James Moore, an 18-year-old expatriate Englishman from Paris. On November 7, 1869, the first city-to-city race was held between Paris and Rouen; again Moore was the winner, having covered the 135 km (84 miles) in 10 hours 25 minutes, including time spent walking his bicycle up the steeper hills.
In the United States the first recorded race was held on May 24, 1878, in Boston, two years after the start of professional baseball and 13 years before basketball was invented. Almost all of the early American racing was on tracks, in long races sometimes employing pacers who rode ahead of contestants at a fast speed and then dropped away. By the 1890s there were about 100 dirt, cement, or wooden tracks around the country, mainly in big cities. More than 600 professionals traveled on this national circuit, which ranged from Boston to San Francisco, with competitions in such cities as St. Louis, Salt Lake City, Denver, and Los Angeles.
weightlifting
The origins of modern weightlifting competition are to be found in the 18th- and 19th-century strong men, such as Eugene Sandow and Arthur Saxon of Germany, George Hackenschmidt of Russia, and Louis Apollon of France, who performed in circuses and theatres. By 1891 there was international competition in London. The revived Olympic Games of 1896 included weightlifting events, as did the Games of 1900 and 1904, but thereafter these events were suspended until 1920. In that year, at the suggestion of the International Olympic Committee, the International Weightlifting Federation (Fédération Haltérophile Internationale; FHI) was formed to regularize events and supervise international competition.
In the Games before World War II, the leading weightlifters were French, German, and Egyptian. After the war American weightlifters were dominant until 1953. Thereafter Soviet and Bulgarian weightlifters held a virtual monopoly on world records and championships. By the late 1990s the leading countries competing in weightlifting were Turkey, Greece, and China.
fencing
The earliest depiction of swordplay is a relief in the temple of Medīnat Habu, near Luxor in Egypt, built by Ramses III about 1190 bce. This relief must depict a practice bout or match, as the sword points are covered and the swordsmen are parrying with shields strapped to their left arms and are wearing masks (tied to their wigs), large bibs, and padding over their ears. Swordsmanship, as a pastime and in single combat and war, was also practiced widely by the ancient Persians, Babylonians, Greeks, and Romans as well as by the Germanic tribes.
The Romans brought sword combat to a highly systematic art that was taught to both their legions and their gladiators. Gladiators were trained in schools (ludi) by professional instructors (doctores). Beginners practiced with a wooden sword called a rudis. More-advanced training took place with weapons that were somewhat heavier than those used in actual combat.
gymnastics
The term gymnastics, derived from a Greek word meaning “to exercise naked,” applied in ancient Greece to all exercises practiced in the gymnasium, the place where male athletes did indeed exercise unclothed. Many of these exercises came to be included in the ancient Olympic Games, until the abandonment of the Games in 393 ce. Some of the competitions grouped under this ancient definition of gymnastics later became separate sports, such as athletics (track and field), wrestling, and boxing.
Minoan civilization: Toreador FrescoToreador Fresco, Late Minoan painting from Knossos, Crete, depicting young people vaulting over a bull, c. 1450–1400 bce; in the Heraklion Archaeological Museum, Crete.
