130th Olympics130th Olympics130th Olympics

 

In preparation for the 130th Olympic Games, the Hellanodikai offer the following stories of Olympic champions as inspiration for the hopeful.

Arrakhion

Phidippides of Athens

Koroibos

Milo of Kroton

Ergoteles of Himera


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Arrakhion

Death itself could not deny this great pankratiast his triumph. Arrakhion’s opponent had him locked in a scissors grip with his legs as he attempted to strangle Arrakhion with his hands. Despite his desperate situation, Arrakhion managed to break one of the other man’s toes, causing such pain that the opponent lifted his finger toward the judges in the traditional sign of surrender — even as Arrakhion died from his throttling. Arrakhion was declared the victor in the contest.

Phidippides of Athens

This champion Olympic runner exemplified the military purposes of the Olympics during the Battle of Marathon. Threatened by the forces of the Persian Empire, the commanders of the Athenian army dispatched Phidippides to run to Sparta for reinforcements.

After the Athenians defeated the Persians, Phidippides, who had fought in the battle, raced to Athens to announce the victory and to warn the Athenians that Persian ships were heading their way. Phidippides reached Athens in three hours, delivered his message, then died of exhaustion.

Koroibos

Sole winner of the first modern Olympic Games. He ran in the Stade, the only event at that time.

Milo of Kroton

This powerful wrestler won six Olympic wreaths, the first as a boy, and then five consecutive times from the 62nd to the 66th Olympic Games.

Ergoteles of Himera

Ergoteles fled his native city, Knosses, on the island of Crete when a revolution broke out and sought refuge in Himera, a land known for its hot springs. It was as a citizen of Himera that Ergoteles twice won the dolikohs, the longest of footraces, at the Olympics, during the 77th and 78th Olympic Games. The great poet Pindar commemorated the twist of fate that resulted in Ergoteles becoming Hemira’s Olympic champion in an ode that concludes with these lines:

For you, son of Philanor,

Well may we see that like a fighting cock,

Whose skill only his homely hearth may know,

The glory of your racing feet

Had fallen like the fleeting leaves of autumn

Unhonoured to the ground,

Had not revolt, man against man, denied you

Knossos, your own homeland. Now, as it falls,

Winning Olympia’s crown, Ergoteles,

Twice victor, too, at Pytho and the Isthmus,

You have brought glory to the Nymphs’ warm springs

Here in this land which is your new-found home.

 

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2002 World Book copyright