The Origin of the Olympics: From Ancient Greek Festival to Global Sporting Spectacle
The year 776 BC is considered the official birthdate of the Olympics — but that date was calculated centuries later by a scholar. The ancient Games were not a sporting event but a religious festival for Zeus, where athletes competed naked, women were banned, and a victor could die mid-competition and still be declared the winner. How did this festival disappear for over a millennium, who tried to revive it before Coubertin, and why does the Olympic flame relay trace back not to ancient Greece but to the 1936 Berlin Olympics?
