Modern Olympics vs. Ancient Olympics

Modern Olympics vs. Ancient Olympics

In Ancient Greek times, the Olympics was a yearly event, which took

the whole preceding year to prepare for. Today the Olympics take place

every four years and we spend the 4 or 5 years leading up to it to

prepare. The ancient Olympics lasted for 5 days but today the Olympics

last 3 - 4 weeks.

We prepare today, by cleaning the whole country/ town it is going to

take place in, by advertising the event and even building a new

airport, as they have done in Athens for the Olympics, which will be

happening in 2004. In the ancient Olympics the events were held in the

same place each year so they didn't need to put in as much effort as

we do in modern day. However, courses did have to be dug and sand pits

prepared, as well as general tidying up having to be done around the

buildings and monuments.

For the Ancient Olympics all the competitors took up residence one

month before the games at Elis and were under supervision from the

Hellanodikai. They were trained hard and harshly and the correct

criteria of the athletes were checked. They had to be fit, from the

correct parentage and they had to be fairly rich. The athletes were

put on strict diets and under strict supervision from the judges

(Hellanodikai). They had this constantly for one month before the

games began. Nowadays, the competitors come from all over the world

and train in their own hometowns until the events take place. They are

usually on healthy diets and they have to train hard, but not usually

as strict as it was in ancient times. Nowadays, the checks done on

athletes are usually drug tests to check they haven't been taking

steroids.

During the actual events of the Olympics in Ancient times, the

athletes were naked. Today athletes wear the latest state of the art

aerodynamic clothing to make them streamlined to give them the best

performance in competitions. Another difference between the athletes