The Ancient
Olympics
by CTCWeb Editors
It's
lack of faith that makes people afraid of meeting challenges,
and I believed in myself.
- Cassius
Marcellus Clay (Muhammad Ali), Gold medal winner in light heavyweight
boxing at the 1960 Olympic Games in Rome, Italy
The Training
Like the athletes of today, ancient athletes
trained and trained and trained some more. Training was a highly
developed art. From early childhood, an athlete trained with
a trainer. There were three types of trainers. The paidotribes
were physical trainers of athletics for competition; the gymnastes
were high paid athletic exercise trainers; and the aleiptes
were "anointers" who anointed athletes’ bodies
with oil for muscle massages. Trainers’ services were not
inexpensive. If an athlete could not afford a trainer, his city
paid for one. Athletes arrived in Elis one month prior to the
start of the Olympic games, and continued to trained in one of
many arenas there. The runners and pentathletes trained in the
Xystos. The wrestlers and the boxers trained in the Tetragonon,
and the boys trained in the Maltho.
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Wilma Glodean Rudolph
was an American track-and-field athlete. She was the first American
woman to win three track-and-field gold medals at a single Olympic
Games. At the age of four Rudolph contracted scarlet fever, polio,
and double pneumonia. Despite being unable to walk normally until
she was eleven, Rudolph was a star athlete in high school. Rudolph
competed in her first Olympics in 1956 in Melbourne, Australia,
and won the bronze medal in the 4 x 100-meter relay race. In
Rome, at the 1960 Olympics, Rudolph earned three gold medals
by winning the 100-meter and 200-meter dashes and running the
anchor leg of the 4 x 100-meter relay. |
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