From Greece to London: The Olympics Then and Now

by Grunty McBunty, Sports Editor

The XXX Olympiad kicks off in London this Friday. The last time the festivities were held there was in post-war 1948 when athletes were expected to bring their own food. This time participants will have plenty of Big Macs to subsist on since the London Assembly apparently did not gain support in its bid to ban the fast food sponsor from the Games.

Expected to be a grand spectacle, one of the perks of the British location is that the Olympic torch can ride the London Eye as it did yesterday on Day 65 of its Relay. (Not as many people witnessed the flame being dropped on a street in Farnham Surrey.)

2012 marks the third time London has hosted the Olympics—the most of any city. Rumor has it that Paris was in the lead to host until French President Jacques Chirac insulted Britain before the vote by saying, “After Finland, it's the country with the worst food.” Book your tickets for the 2020 Helsinki games now.

Those Early Years

I grew up watching the Olympics on television every four years, humming the national anthem and taping newspaper clippings of Greg Louganis—er, I mean Steffi Graf—to my bedroom wall. I could not imagine an Olympics without colorful uniforms, ice dancing or corporate sponsors. You have to go back thousands of years to find that they originally began as part of a religious festival honoring Zeus, the god of thunder, lightning and disco. 

Those Ancient Games were held in Olympia, Greece, and the only allowed participants were Greek males who were not otherwise employed as poets, philosophers or slaves. A man trained competitively from boyhood while his mother baked baklava and yelled at him for throwing Yiayia’s antique plate-turned-discus at his sister’s head.  

Even then, many athletes employed professional trainers who coached them for their particular event and advised them on the most flattering pose for the Wheaties box. 

A Side of Politics or Religion?

The Ancient Olympics often became a staging ground for political rivalries and statements — something of an anomaly today. To quell political upheaval during the Games, a truce was called and faithfully observed, suspending wars and preventing military action. The truce also forbade legal disputes, the carrying out of death penalties and the music of Lady Gaga.

Today, there will be no such truce as Americans can undoubtedly be expected to endure thousands of negative campaign ads for Rombama. 

As for religion, the Vatican has been trying to emphasize the positive role sports can play in society. So last Sunday Pope Benedict XVI tweeted this: “I’ll be praying for #worldpeace, friendship and gold for @FedericaPellegrini.”

Sacrificial ceremonies were held throughout the Ancient Olympics, including the 100 oxen offered up to Zeus in the middle of the festival, right around the time when refreshments were running low and there was an urgent need for massive pots of ox tail stew. 

Bob Costas' hair

Altars were often erected like the gold and ivory, 42-foot high statue of Zeus that became one of the Seven Wonders of the Ancient World. A comparable modern-day wonder would be Bob Costas’ hair.

Marketing Ploys

In Ancient Greece, the spectators came in droves and camped out beneath the sky—except for the aristocrats who knew to book five-star tents months ahead of time. The streets were filled with food vendors and merchants offering low quality, high-priced goods such as glow-in-the-dark olive wreaths for the kids, Eupolus of Thessaly bobbleheads or officially licensed “Rome Sucks” bumper stickers. 

2012 mascots Wenlock and Mandeville

In London, we have two Olympic mascots: Wenlock and Mandeville. As the story goes, these creepy, one-eyed creatures were fashioned from droplets of steel in the hopes of distracting the world from the dismally expensive and ugly 2012 Olympic logo.

Wenlock and Mandeville have their own animated film, website, Facebook and Twitter profiles. Vegas odds have them at 3 to 1 for winning Olympic gold. 

Oh Yeah, They Play Sports Too

The first Olympic Games for which we have written records dates back to 776 BCE when there was only one event (the stade, or 192-meter dash) won by a fry cook from Elis named Coroebus. Officials eventually added other sports like boxing, chariot racing and the pentathlon in which athletes (who competed naked) were judged in five events: running, jumping, javelin, pottery making and cruise ship entertainment. 

1896 Olympic pole vaulting team

Unfortunately, chariot racing did not make the transition when the modern-day Games were resurrected in 1896. Which is too bad because there’s nothing like a chariot race in the buff for pure unadulterated excitement.

Instead we have sports like curling, which involves men, brooms and ice. And—lucky us!—in 2016 we can look forward to the re-admission of golf as an official Olympic sport. Somehow those sneaky Scots have managed to infiltrate our games... 

In 393 CE, due to strong lobbying from right wing conservatives, the Roman emperor Theodosius I abolished the Olympic Games because of their pagan influences. It took nearly 1500 years for their reinstatement, which was spearheaded by Pierre de Coubertin, a French aristocrat whose biggest challenge in the whole matter was getting the French interested in sports. 

Jim McKay

He was finally able to coordinate delegates from nine countries into forming the very first International Olympic Committee, and in 1896 the modern-day Olympic Games opened in Athens, Greece. The television coverage was not as broad as it is today, of course, but it gave ABC’s Jim McKay his start. 

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Mark your calendars now for the 2014 Winter Olympics to be held in Sochi, a city of 400,000. This is the first time the Games will be held in the Russian Federation since they were recognized in 1993 as something other than a nuisance.