Thus Endeth Another Winter Olympics

[Occhidiangela]

Sorry, but looking back at the history of the original Olympics, when they were a competition between Greek cities/states, they were a charged up rivalry, with winners getting honour/privileges for their lifetime plus benefits for their descendants. As regards Pancration, the original unlimited combat, it makes todays WWF/total combat look like wimp sports.

The neo-olympics always had a competetive/nationalistic side, only they had a veneer of being purely amateur. IIRC blacks were only allowed to compete after the first world war. Anyway when communist amateurs competed the idea of gifted amateurs doing it just for the glory was dead anyway (if there was ever any truth to it)

Personally the Olympics passed me by, but all the events, except perhaps Curling, need a degree of physical fitness and competition I couldn't handle, so I don't knock them!
[right][snapback]103040[/snapback][/right]

Battles of champions indeed, be they real or in a stylistic form. Agree with your rejoinder on the political element of "for the glory of the (polis) City State." Local versus Imperial emphasis, which I consider significant, but the theme is there, no question. I guess my tie in to Ajax and Hector, or Achilles and Hector before the walls of Troy didn't come across in the "battle of champions" theme as well as I had hoped.

Getting back to Olympics versus neo Olympics, we are back to sport as combats and contests that were decided by objective measure of who won, not by a judge. No lawyers. ;)

Occhi