ABSTRACT
While an ancient Greek myth tells of the Olympic Games being founded by Hercules, son of Zeus and king of the gods, the earliest written documents of the earthly games tell that a single event, the ‘stade’ – a run of approximately 192 metres – was held as part of a religious festival to Zeus. The records, dating back to 776 BC, detail the first Olympic champion as Coroebus, who, along with all the other athletes, completed the event naked. These games were accompanied by a truce, allowing Greek Olympians to travel between warring city states in a time of conflict. The popularity of the original games continued to grow, being held every four years for nearly 1,200 years, until they were outlawed by the Roman emperor Theodosius I, a Christian, who abolished the games because of their pagan influences. (IOC, 2008).
