Olympic Games - events

The first race held at the Olympic games was the stadion which is a footrace of around two hundred meters. We’ve since added more races, one is called the diaulos where athletes run the full length of the stadion, then make a sharp turn around a wooden peg and run back again and there’s another race where athletes run twenty four lengths of the Stadium. If you have a false start, you can be punished, so to make it fair on everyone the runners start the race by crouching down in front of a row of stones marking the start line and curl their toes in the dirt. Running isn’t the only race we have now, over the years we’ve added more events like wrestling, boxing, chariot racing and horse racing. One of the roughest events we have is called the Pankration which is a combat sport that combines boxing and wrestling, it gets nasty though cos there are hardly any rules. But the Pentathlon is my favourite; it’s a series of five events which includes running, wrestling, the long jump and throwing the javelin and the discus. Boy it’s tough.