THE OLYMPIC GAMES.

Otago Witness, Issue 2840, 19 August 1908, Page 82

THE OLYMPIC GAMES.

WHY OLYMPIC? (By E. Norman Gabdiner, in th© Daily Mail.) How many of all who read and talk about the Olympic Games caji answer the question: Why Olympic? I The Greeks weTe the most athletic — we \ may almost say the only athletic— nation of antiquity, and the Olympic festival was the greatest of all their athletic meetings. Ite history is unique. Beginning as a small local gathering in a peaceful valley of the North- West Peloponne6us, it grew into the national festival of the wnole race. Sports hadi been held at Olympia for centuries probably before the founding of the festival in 776 8.C., but from this date the Olympia were held every four years till the close of the fourth century of our era We think of the Derby or the 'Varsity Boat (Race as timahonoured institutions ; Newmarket takes us back to the reign of Charles II; but what are those records compared with the twelve hundred years of Olympia! The modern sportsman sometimes dates the years by the names of Derby winners. But the Olympic festival was so important that even serious historians like Thuoy* didss,.. wishing to fix some date for their readers, would name some well-known victor at Olympia, and later writers based a whole system of chronology on the names of the winners in the foot race. What was it that mad© Olympia 60 great? In the first place, the Greeks were a nation of soldiers and athletes. We know from Homer what they weTe, even before the founding of the Olympia. Homer's fair-haired Achaeans amused themselves ia the intervals of fighting with all sorts of manly sport. The chieftains took their pleasure in chariot races and foot races, in boxing and wrestling ; throwing the speaT or the. stone, and shooting- with the bow, were the recreations of the soldiery. All their sports were military and practical, the natural sports of a race continually fighting and bound to keep themselves in good condition for their safety's sake.

— Athletics and Eeligion. — > When life grew more settled thesa j sports became still more important. Every ■ citizen had to be ready to take the field I at a moment's notice, but war no longer j sufficed to keep him in condition. So j these same sports became the basis of a national system of physical training, voluntary indeed for the "most part, but none the less effective. It was enforced by a sense of public epirit and encouraged by great national festivals. Of these festivals the greatest was the Olympic. Olympia ivas a place of no importance politically ; it owed its greatness to religion. It was one of the most sacred places in Greece, and the great athletic festivals were all closely connected religion. Like one of our own great cathedrals, the temples and monuments of Olympia formed a record of centuries of religious and political history. The •earliest sports held there were probably funeral^games around the barrow of a tribal hero, Pelops. So, to look nearer home, the old Irish fairs were, many of them, founded in memory of departed king 6 and chieftains. But at an early date the worship of Zeus, the greatest of the Greek gods, was introduced at Olympia, and the games passed under his protection. It was this peculiar sanctity' that preserved the high standard of athletics and the purity of sport at Olympia for so many centuries. For the history of Greek sport has ite less pleasant side. In its twelve hundred years we can tTace the history of both its rise and of its fall. After the fifth, century over-speeiaKsation and pro- j feasionalism came in with' their attendant J evils, and sport lost its influence on the race as a whole. But in spite of this, even when sport had become hopelessly ai Uncial and corrupt, Olympic maintained its standard of honour, and in its whole history not 10 cases of corruption are recorded. Even when athletics had become purely professional, the competitors at Olympia received no other prize than the simple crown of olive leaves cut from the sacred olive tree. So Olympia stands for the purity of amateur sport. — Sport as a Bond of Union. — The Olympic festival was a national festival, one of the four Panhellenic festivals, as they were called — festivals, that is, -of the whole Hellenic race. These- festivals were of supreme importance to Greece. Greece, we must remember, wa,s not a single State, but a collection of independent city States, intensely jealous of their independence and constantly quarrelling with one another. It was only epme great national danger, such as the Persian invasion, which could overcome this spirit of independence and unite them for a time in defence of their common liberty. At the same time, they were keenly conscious of their common- nationality and civilisation, and' this feeling was largely due to their athletic festivals. These festivals, like- the Irisb fairs, were

times of irniYCTPal peace and good will, i during • which. «J1 strife and war ceasedand f II joined' together ,in the friendly rivalry of sport. , „-, ~ T , y Greece-, moreover,- .was, mot ; confined to the mainland. The Greeks; like the English, were a restless race, "race, of sailoffe. •Love of adventure, political quarrels,' ■want of land, drove them forth constantly to find new homes beyond \he sea, an<fc 11 . fl , ftll o^^ury they had establiehed their colonies throughout the 'whole of the Mediterranean. But wherever they went ttejr took T^tK then* tbdr <ywn civilisation, their religion, and their love of sport. Everywhere ijhey remained Greeks, and looked with loving eyes towards the mainland of Greece as home

The most numerous and the most prosperous of the Greek colonies were the rich cities of Sicily and Italy, and no Staies were more devoted to sport. Now, Plympia faced westwards for the Greek trorid. The River -Alpheus, near the mouth of which it lay, offered ready, access to ships from Sicily or Italy. Benoa Olympia was a natural meeting-place for the colonists, of the west and the States of the mofcher-cotrntTy. ' The colonists flocked in ever-increasing, numbers as visitor^ op competitors to the festival • the "earliest monuments set up by atiy Greek State at Olympia were their gifts; and' so keen "was their enthusiasm, that in the sixth century they even, surpassed the mothercountry in the number and "brilliance of their victories. In Greece, as in England-to-day, sport helped to bind the colonists beyond the sea to thp^e ab home, and thus the Olympic festival became a bond v of> union between all the scattered cities off the Greek world. Surely no more appropriate name could' have been chosen for a great international gathering of amateur athletes, intended to foster mutual understanding and good will, not between members of a single race, but between the nations of the world !