American Jesse Owens participated in the 1936 Berlin Games, called by many the “Hitler Olympics,” and stole the show. He won four golds, including the 100 and 200 meters, setting or tying records in all four events.
"The good runner thinks only of what is in front of him and, stretching his mind toward the finish line and putting his hope of victory in his feet, does not plot against the fellow next to him or even consider his competitors." - Lucian, author and philosopher, 170 A.D.
THE EVENTS
As in modern times, running events at Olympia were the cornerstone of the Games. For the first 13 Olympiads, the only event was the stadion, a footrace the length of the stadium, roughly 200 meters. Later, two more running events were added: the diaulos, two lengths of the stadium, in the 14th Olympiad and the dolichos, a distance race of 20 to 24 lengths, in the 15th. An exceptional athlete who won all three races, as Polites did in 69 AD, was called a triastes, or tripler.
For the 65th Games in 520 B.C., a fourth event debuted that must have been quite a sight. In the hoplitodromia, named after the Greek word for a heavily armed soldier, runners wore armor. In some races, they were decked out from head to toe, while in others runners wore just a helmet and shin guards while carrying a shield. As with all athletic pursuits devised to keep men fit for war, the race-in-armor was a serious event. But with all the clanging and inevitable collisions, it must have been a highly entertaining race. So spectacular was the race-in-armor that it was the finale of the running program.
THE VENUE
In the early years, runners competed on an open stretch of level ground with a line drawn in the sand to mark the start, a practice that led to the saying "starting from scratch." Gradually, improvements were made, and a basic stadium was constructed with a rectangular track, since all events were run in a straight line.
Around 350 B.C., a new stadium was built with a clay track dusted with sand and marble sills to mark the start and finish lines. The length of the track was roughly 600 Olympic feet, measured by walking with one foot in front of the other 600 times, and roughly equal to 200 meters. There were no seats, and it is possible the word stadium derived from the Greek word for "to stand." The ground on either side of the track rose gradually, and spectators crowded these embankments, estimated to hold more than 40,000.
THE COMPETITION
Ancient runners did a few warm-up exercises, similar to modern runners, but did not crouch at the start of races the way today's sprinters do from starting blocks. Runners used a standing start with arms stretched forward, one foot slightly in front of the other, toes gripping the grooves in the marble sill, a rudimentary starting block. A trumpet served as the starting gun, and anyone who jumped the start was flogged.
Because the track was straight, runners made a sharp turn around a pole and ran back the opposite direction in races longer than one length of the stadium. The pole was wide to prevent runners from grabbing it to swing themselves around. The turn was the site of much jostling for position, and runners sprinted even at the start of the distance race to get ahead of the pack.
Not unlike today's Olympic runners, those in ancient time had attitude. A Lybian athlete, Eubotas, was so confident in his ability he had his victory statue made before the Games were held. When he won, he was able to dedicate his statue the same day.
Nearly all scenes depicted on pottery show runners competing nude, except for select pieces of armor during the hoplitodromia. Some accounts say early runners wore something similar to a loin cloth, and there are two versions for why the garment was abandoned. In the first, a runner competing at Athens was in the lead when his shorts fell down and he tripped over them. In the second, Orsippos of Megara won the stadion in 720 B.C. at Olympia, but he lost his shorts in the process, thereby starting a new trend.
THE LEGEND
Leonidas of Rhodes
The most famous ancient Olympic runner was Leonidas of Rhodes, who eventually was deified for his victories in the stadion, diaulos and hoplitodromia, the race in armor. Leonidas won all three in four successive Olympiads, 164, 160, 156 and 152 B.C. Imagine a runner maintaining elite speed for a span of 12 years, a much more difficult task, according to the Greeks, than dominating one of the combat events, which required strength. For this reason, the accomplishments of Leonidas were more reknowned than those of others who were victorious in successive Olympiads in heavy events.
MODERN GAMES
Running events, which fall under the track and field umbrella of athletics on the Olympic program, always have been among the most popular of modern competitions, from the 100 meters to the marathon. Running features many of the Games' highest-profile athletes, not the least of which are the 100-meter champions, dubbed the world's fastest man and woman.
While many think the marathon was an ancient event, that is not correct. The 26-mile race has its origin in ancient Greece with the legend of a Greek soldier, Phidippedes, running a distance of 260 kilometers over two days to deliver news of a victory in battle, then dying on the spot. But the marathon did not become an Olympic event until the first modern Games in 1896 in Athens, where it was won triumphantly by a Greek, Spyros Louis.
THE LEGEND
"It dawned on me with blinding brightness. I realized: I had jumped into another rare kind of stratosphere, one that only a handful of people in every generation are lucky enough to know." - Jesse Owens, four-time gold medalist
Possibly the most famous sprinter of the modern era is Jesse Owens, an African-American from the United States who participated in the 1936 Olympics, known to many as the "Hitler Olympics." The Games took place in Berlin, where Nazi leader Adolf Hitler was eager to prove the dominance of the Aryan race. Owens had other ideas. By the end of the Olympics, much to the frustration of Hitler, even the German crowds cheered this remarkable athlete. He won the 100, 200, long jump and ran a leg of the victorious 4x100 relay team. He set Olympic records in three of those events and tied the 100-meter world record of 10.3 seconds. He was the first American to win four gold medals in a single Olympics.
2004 GAMES
American Maurice Greene, the reigning Olympic champion in the 100 meters, will try to regain the title of World's Fastest Man in Athens. Greene, who won at the U.S. Olympic Trials in July, runs with unsurpassed arrogance. His favorite topic these days is a tattoo on his arm of a lion's head whose mane spells the letters GOAT, which is an acronym for Greatest Of All Time, which Greene has decided he is. The lion, he explains, is the king of the jungle, and he is the king of the track. Sounds like an ancient fable, doesn't it? But Greene, who returned to world-class form after a series of injuries, including a broken leg from a motorcycle accident in 2002, has evidence to support his claim. No one has run more sub-10-second 100s than Greene, whose trials victory in 9.91 was his 47th. In Athens, Greene will look to regain the world record and match Carl Lewis, who stands as the only man to win two golds in the 100.
