Olympian

“ The Olympian Games of ancient times brought the Greek world together every four years in the beautiful valley of Olympia, to contemplate a spectacle the uniformity of which seems to have constituted an additional charm in the eyes of the spectators. ”

“ If Olympian victors, with an earthly crown in view, learn to live chastely for the preservation of their strength while training, shall not men, whose contest is for heavenly prizes, keep their bodies undefiled, their spirits holy? ”

“ When He, who knows the secrets of our hearts, sees us eagerly prepare for the contest of virtue, He instantly supplies us with His assistance, lightening our labours, and strengthening the weakness of our nature. In the Olympian contests the trainer stands by as a spectator merely, awaiting the issue, and unable to contribute anything to the efforts of the contender ”

“ V The Olympian Links
"There," said Adonis, as he put the finishing touch to my costume. "You look like a champion. Do you play golf, sir?"
"There's a difference of opinion about that, Adonis," I replied, my mind reverting to the number of handicap matches I hadn't won. "Some people who have observed my game say I don't. Have you links here?"
"Have we links?" he cried. "Well, rather. They're said to be the best in the universe." ”

“ The ecstatic power of an Olympian triumph is well illustrated by the story of Diagoras, the Rhodian, who had been a famous champion in his younger days, and was present when his two sons won the entire pentathlon, i. e., carried off the five prizes for which the athletes of all Greece had been training during the four years preceding the sixty-first Olympiad. ”

“ These legends are embodied in the First, Third, and Eleventh Olympian Odes, which may now be considered briefly in succession.
The First Olympian Ode was written for Hiero, and commemorates his success in the horse-race with a horse bearing the appropriate name of Pherenicus, or "the victor." It opens with the oft-quoted maxim, "Best is water," [6] and proceeds at once to the occasion of the Ode. Water is the first of boons, gold the first of treasures, and Olympia the first of festivals. Olympia it is that wakes our lays, as we approach the happy home of Hiero! ”

“ At this statue it is customary for the athletes, their fathers and brothers, and also their trainers, to swear over the entrails of a boar that they will not cheat at the Olympian games. And the athletes make this further oath that they have carefully trained for the space of 10 months. And the umpires also, either of boys or the colts that compete in the races, swear to give their decisions honestly and without bribes, and not to reveal the reasons for their selection of the winners. ”

“ Sports and pastimes of all kinds have been familiar to the plain from time immemorial—games which, by a pretty figure of speech, have been described as Olympian, and which, we rejoice to say, are not altogether discontinued. ”

“ If his pupils find it repays them to submit to his stringent dicta for the hope of winning a champion’s belt or a silver medal, is it not worth while to accept the much less severe regimen necessary to obtain the Olympian garland woven of the joys which a sound and elastic health offers? ”

“ A moody child and wildly wise Pursued the game with joyful eyes, Which chose, like meteors, their way, And rived the dark with private ray: They overleapt the horizon's edge, Searched with Apollo's privilege; Through man, and woman, and sea, and star Saw the dance of nature forward far; Through worlds, and races, and terms, and times Saw musical order, and pairing rhymes. Olympian bards who sung Divine ideas below, Which always find us young, And always keep us so. ”

“ He had never realized so clearly as now that he lay in these delectable cushions feasting his intense imagination on the peerless and chaste beauty that made his eyes grow dark, that these millions of street-persons, whom, in his incomprehensible blindness, he had come so nearly to despise, were the true Olympians. ”

“ What then are the qualities of Pindar’s athlete? They are summed up in that most typical of all his athletic odes, the 11th Olympian, in honour of Agesidamus of Epizephyrian Locri, the winner of the boys’ boxing match in the great Ol. 76. “If one be born with excellent gifts, then may another who sharpeneth his natural edge, speed him, God helping, to an exceeding weight of glory. Without toil there have triumphed a very few.”
Firstly and above all the athlete must be born “with excellent gifts.” Strength and beauty are the gifts of Zeus, of the graces, of fate. ”

“ Think about the countless hours these athletes put in, knowing it could mean the difference in a split-second victory that earns them a lifetime of pride, and gives us enduring memories. It’s about the character it takes to train your heart out, even when no one’s watching. Just hard work, focus, and a dream. That’s the Olympic spirit – and it’s the American spirit, too
In our Olympians, we recognize that no one accomplishes greatness alone. Even solo athletes have a coach beside them and a country behind them. ”

“ For whether in sports or in everyday life, there's a lesson in what our Olympians have accomplished and in how they've done it. For these are people who were given an opportunity to succeed, but they also made the most of it. ”

“ It is, therefore, a matter of importance to establish records which will be a sort of athletic starting-point for the twentieth century. The amateurs and professionals, without intermingling in the least, will be able to see each other at work, and comparisons advantageous to sport will be the result. ”

“ What struck me during this journey was the astonishing progress made by sport in the last ten years. Anglo-Saxons have some trouble in getting used to the idea that other nations can devote themselves to athleticism, and that successfully. ”

“ Any good authority will tell us, however, that a truly capable athlete will not try to specialize so much in any one kind of contest that he cannot do justice to the others. As an all around well-trained man he will try to excel in the Pentathlon, the “five contests.” Herein he will successfully join in running, javelin casting, quoit throwing, leaping, and wrestling. [*] As the contest proceeds the weaker athletes will be eliminated; only the two fittest will be left for the final trial of strength and skill. ”

“ Midas longed for gold, and insulted the Olympians. He got gold, so that whatsoever he touched became gold,—and he, with his long ears, was little the better for it. ”

“ The tough wood quivered, cracked, and gave way, and a second effort—which hung the boy-athlete’s low, broad forehead with beads of moisture, and made the veins of his strong hands stand out like cords—wrenched the bough away altogether.
For a moment the young champion’s harsh but striking features brightened into a smile of joyful pride, natural enough to one who felt that he possessed surpassing bodily strength in an age when bodily strength and prowess were the most valued of all qualities. ”

“ The modern schoolboy is essentially a product of the age he lives in, and the gods he worships are constantly adding to their number. Of what does his Pantheon consist? Foremost, of course, comes the athlete. He is a genuine and permanent deity. His worshippers behold him every day, excelling at football and cricket, lifting incredible weights in the dormitory before going to bed, or running a mile in under five minutes. His qualifications are written on his brow, and up he goes to the pinnacle of Olympus, where he endures from age to age. ”

“ The Olympic beauty of this game is beyond all praise. It calls into active exercise every muscle of the human frame, and brings into bold relief the supple and athletic forms of the best built people in the world. ”

“ Last night athletes from all over the world marched around the Olympic stadium there and stood and watched as a single torchbearer climbed the steps and lit the Olympic flame, marking the start of the games.
I'm sure that like me, you'll be proud of all of these young men and women, and particularly of our own American athletes. Our athletes are a remarkable group, not only for their achievements but for how they represent so much of what is good and beautiful and splendid about this sweet and promised land. ”

“ Emulation and the presence of relatives and schoolmates impart to competitive gymnastics a charm which a spirited boy would not exchange for the passive pleasure of witnessing the best circus-performance. Wrestling, lance-throwing, archery, base-ball, and a well-contested foot-race, can awaken the enthusiasm of the Grecian palæstra, and professional gymnasts will take the same delight in the equally healthful though less dramatic trials of strength at the horizontal bar. ”

“ The athletes are moving rapidly, and using their arms as wings. On the other hand, those who were running a long distance clenched their fists and held their arms close to their sides, as do our modern runners. A peculiar custom prevailed during the games. It is said the contestants kept up a loud shouting in order to retain their courage, while at the same time the admiring spectators cheered wildly as some favorite or friend neared the goal. ”

“ SOCRATES: Truly, Hippias, you are to be congratulated, if at every Olympic festival you have such an encouraging opinion of your own wisdom when you go up to the temple. I doubt whether any muscular hero would be so fearless and confident in offering his body to the combat at Olympia, as you are in offering your mind. ”

“ All through the livelong day on Saturdays, and in the afternoons during weekdays, boys in strange-looking running costumes of various designs could be seen diligently practicing at all manner of stunts, from sprinting, leaping hurdles, engaging in the high jump, with the aid of poles; throwing the hammer; and, in fact, every conceivable exercise that would be apt to come under the head of a genuine athletic tournament. ”

“ It was customary for the young men of all classes in those days to pursue athletic exercises, such as pitching the bar, leaping, wrestling, and the like, these being regarded as the surest tests of bodily strength. Possessing a powerful and active frame, he was ever the victor in those sports; and from his marked success among his comrades in this respect, and his fair and impartial disposition, he was universally the umpire in all disputes growing out of these and like contests for superiority that arose between one and another. ”

“ But the college student is prone to adore muscle. The successful athlete is, for a brief period, praised, petted, and advertised far more than is the ablest student or professor in the institution. Scarcely do the noblest achievements of science or philanthropy receive so much notice as a successful full-back on a foot-ball team. The athlete goes up indeed like a rocket, startling the ear and dazzling the eye for a moment—then oblivion, or deserved obscurity. ”

“ The influence of athletic training had impressed upon him the value of physical strength systematically trained and developed; his artistic sense taught him that no subject was fitting for his art which did not present beauty of outline and proportion. ”

“ The place of physical training and of games in education, the place of athletics in our daily life and in our national life, are questions of present importance to us all, and in considering these questions we cannot fail to learn something from the athletic history of a nation which for a time at least succeeded in reconciling the rival claims of body and of mind, and immortalized this result in its art. ”

“ During the Olympiads it is to be presumed that men busied themselves with the slums that existed in those days, hearkened to the decadent poetry or fiction of that time, and then, as the robuster period of the games came round, braced themselves once more to the consideration of braver things. ”

“ Nay more, in any other contests of strength and endurance, I believe they would more than hold their own against any younger athletes; and would overwhelm any similar number of non-athletes of the same or any other age. As contests I should select a hard day's shooting over dogs, cross-country riding, tug-of-war, boxing, long-distance rowing, or, in fact, any contest in which the special element of racing in light ships has no part. ”

“ Nevertheless, in some systems the title of fine arts has been consistently claimed, if not for athletics technically so called, and involving the idea of competition and defeat, at any rate for gymnastics, regarded simply as a display of the physical frame of man cultivated by exercise—as, for instance, it was cultivated by the ancient Greeks—to an ideal perfection of beauty and strength. ”

“ And on this arena, when athletic exercises were going on, I have often borne a part—where the old men inspired the young with emulation, by reciting the achievements of their youth—and the applause of the rustic spectators was the only meed of victory. Here, sir, I have seen many [Pg 71] a manly struggle; and though I have never entered a public prize ring, I flatter myself I have gained something more than a theoretical knowledge of athletic science. ”

“ The honor of being crowned in the presence of an assembled nation would alone have sufficed to enlist the competition of all able bodied men of a glory-loving race, but many additional inducements made the Olympic championship the day-dream of youth and manhood, and served to increase the ardor of gymnastic emulation. ”

“ Our modern people think they train their sons to strength by football and rowing and jumping, and what are called athletic exercises; all of which it is the fashion now to preach as very noble, and likely to lead to the goodness of the race. ”