Chariot racing was one of the many events in the Greek olympics. (schoolworkhelper.net)
One of the world's most popular sporting competitions first had its own roots in Greek civilizations. Although, we have more sports in our modern day Olympics, like basketball they had enough to suffice to honor their gods. Also, in today's Olympics any athlete that qualifies can compete for their country. Meanwhile, the only people that could qualify in the ancient Greek Olympics were free men who could speak Greek. The ancient Greek events were boxing, equestrian events, pankration, pantathlon, running, and boxing. Unlike boxing today, their boxing had a few different rules. In a boxing event in ancient Greek times, when your opponent is down you are able to continue beating him; the fight wasn't stopped like it is now. Also, they did not have a weight class, so a 30-year-old man could box and fight against a 12-year-old boy (www.perseus.tufts.edu).
Equestrian events, to sum it up, are a variety of different forms of chariot racing. They had a two horse, four horse, and two mule race. They had a 12 lap race (9 miles) and a 6 lap race (4.5 miles). An interesting fact many people may not know though is that an average person in ancient Greece could not afford to train for this event so most of time they had to rely on the wealthy people to pay for their training. In return for the wealthy people paying, the people that paid for their training received the olive wreath and unfortunately not the actual winner (www.perseus.tufts.edu).
Another event they had was pankration, which is a combination of boxing and wrestling. The only moves that were forbidden were biting and gouging an opponents eyes out. Unlike boxing, their were men and boy age groups so this activity was a little more fair (www.perseus.tufts.edu).
The last event is the pentathlon, which is a combination of five events: discus, javelin, jumping, running, and wrestling. There were several different types of discs. The discs could be made of stone, iron, bronze, or lead. The sizes varied and they had age group divisions since the boys were not as strong as the men and couldn't handle the heavy, larger discs. In javelin, they had a stick with a sharpened wooden end or a metal tipped end. To get the maximum distance in the javelin sport, the hurler would grab the stick at the sticks center of gravity, then charge to build momentum and then throw with all their might. Another event they had was, jumping. The jumpers would often use a stone or lead weight to build momentum to obtain a greater distance. Running was still another event. The running has four types of races, a single lap around the stadium (192 m.), 2 laps (384 m.), and a long distance race which ranged between 7-24 laps (1,344 - 4,608 m.). The most difficult was the race in full armor which was 2-4 laps in length. The last event in the pentathlon was wrestling. In this sport, three throw downs were required to win the match and then only outlawed rules were biting and genital holds (www.perseus.tufts.edu).
Equestrian events, to sum it up, are a variety of different forms of chariot racing. They had a two horse, four horse, and two mule race. They had a 12 lap race (9 miles) and a 6 lap race (4.5 miles). An interesting fact many people may not know though is that an average person in ancient Greece could not afford to train for this event so most of time they had to rely on the wealthy people to pay for their training. In return for the wealthy people paying, the people that paid for their training received the olive wreath and unfortunately not the actual winner (www.perseus.tufts.edu).
Another event they had was pankration, which is a combination of boxing and wrestling. The only moves that were forbidden were biting and gouging an opponents eyes out. Unlike boxing, their were men and boy age groups so this activity was a little more fair (www.perseus.tufts.edu).
The last event is the pentathlon, which is a combination of five events: discus, javelin, jumping, running, and wrestling. There were several different types of discs. The discs could be made of stone, iron, bronze, or lead. The sizes varied and they had age group divisions since the boys were not as strong as the men and couldn't handle the heavy, larger discs. In javelin, they had a stick with a sharpened wooden end or a metal tipped end. To get the maximum distance in the javelin sport, the hurler would grab the stick at the sticks center of gravity, then charge to build momentum and then throw with all their might. Another event they had was, jumping. The jumpers would often use a stone or lead weight to build momentum to obtain a greater distance. Running was still another event. The running has four types of races, a single lap around the stadium (192 m.), 2 laps (384 m.), and a long distance race which ranged between 7-24 laps (1,344 - 4,608 m.). The most difficult was the race in full armor which was 2-4 laps in length. The last event in the pentathlon was wrestling. In this sport, three throw downs were required to win the match and then only outlawed rules were biting and genital holds (www.perseus.tufts.edu).