Ancient Greek Olympic Idols

Ancient Greek Olympic Idols

At the modern Olympic Games, the first, second and third place athletes are rewarded, by gold, silver and bronze medals. At the Ancient Greek Games, there was only ONE winner. The winner's prize was an olive branch wreath or crown.

The ancient Olympics were a religious festival as well as a sporting event. They were held in honor of the Greek god, Zeuss.

The Ancient Greeks thought that the gods chose the winning athletes. They believed that the gods had a messenger named Nike. She would fly down to the athletes and inspire them to win.

Only Greek-born men could compete in the games. The winning athlete brought glory to all the people of his home town. When he returned from the Games, he was given a hero’s welcome. Poets would write verses telling of his great win. Sometimes a statue of him would be built and sometimes his picture would be put on coins. People throughout the Greek world would know and remember him for a long time.

The Medals of Eternal Friendship

Japanese pole vaultersShuhei Nishida and SueoOe competed in the 1936 Berlin Games. An American won the gold medal, but the Japanese teammates tied for second place.

They didn't want to compete directly with each other for second and third place, but continued to jump until it became too dark to continue. At 9 p.m. the judges ended the competition and told the Japanese team to decide who would be given second place.

Finally, it was settled that Nishida won the second place by vaulting 4 meters and 25 centimeters in his first try and Oe won the third place by vaulting the same height as Nishida in his second try. For the Olympic records, Oe took the bronze and Nishida took the silver. Neither one of them was happy with that result.

When the friends returned to Japan, they came up with a plan. They took their medals to a jeweller who cut them both in half. Then they joined half of the silver medal with half of the bronze medal, creating a half-silver, half-bronze medal for each of them. The medals became known as the Medals of Eternal Friendship.