Friday, July 23, 2004

The original Olympians

Just watched an interesting documentary on BBC2 about the original Olympians, which used the bones of an ancient athlete to determine, for example, whether he could jump further than a modern man (apparently, he could).

But perhaps even more interesting was what we learnt from the many recreation scenes.

1. Olympians grunted a lot.
2. Olympians over-acted almost everything they did while the crowd behind them tried to get their faces on telly.
3. Olympians tended to compete in gratuitous slow motion.

Fascinating stuff!

1 comment:

Anonymous said...

YES BUT DID THE BBC SHOW US THAT...
4. OlympIans also enhanced the aerodyamics of their naked bodies by hoisting their most private part in a kynodesme. For an elegant illustration of a Greek athlete in all his glory, go to your earlier post, below: Naked Olympic action!

Yrs - A Historian With An Eye for Detail.
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