British Council - Olympics
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The Olympic Games - then and now by Craig Duncan
In 2004 the Olympic Games returned to its home in Greece, where it began …………….. ………………… years ago. The first recorded Olympic festival took place in ………………. BC. Similar festivals had been organized for at least two or three centuries prior to this, but 776 BC saw the start of a regular festival which was to ………………. …………………………… every Olympiad, or four year period.
In ancient Greece citizens of different city states could not always travel freely around the country, but during the Olympics the various rulers …………………….. truces so as that their citizens could attend the Olympics without problems. Sport was only one part of the festival; there were also ………………………. ………………….. , poetry readings, exhibitions of sculpture and ……………. …………………….. . It was a festival which celebrated on the one hand the Greek gods, and on the other hand the abilities of the Greek people.
The early ……………………… ………………………………. were only running races, but later other sports such as boxing and …………………….. came to be included. It was not simply a matter of professional athletes arriving and entering the competitions; for one thing, there were no professional athletes! All the competitors were ordinary Greek citizens who felt that they were among the best in their chosen sports. Anyone wishing to …………………….. had to arrive four weeks early, and undergo a full month of training. It wasn’t only physical training, either: would-be …………………….. had to prove that they were morally and spiritually suitable to compete. Even if someone was physically fit enough, they couldn’t compete unless the judges thought they were of the right moral fibre. Curiously, all sportsmen competed ……………….. – it was widely believed that wearing clothes slowed an athlete down!
At the start of the games, every competitor had to ……………………. an oath that they were a free citizen of Greece who had committed no sacrilege against the gods. In today’s Olympics, one athlete takes an oath on behalf of all the competitors, although of course it is a little different to the ancient Greek oath. Today, competitors promise that they shall abide by the rules of the games, will act in an honourable and ………………………… manner, and not use any performance-……………………….. drugs. Cheating, though, is almost as old as the games itself: records of the ancient Greek games are riddled with tales of athletes paying off their competitors, and of boxers fixing the results of their fights. In ancient Greece, though, there weren’t many ways an athlete could cheat in a race: maybe take a shortcut, or …………………… a horse.
By the time of the St Louis Olympics in 1904, more modern means were available. The original “winner” of the …………… Olympic marathon, Fred Lorz, was disqualified after it was ………………………… that he had travelled half the distance in a car. The man later declared the official winner, Thomas Hicks, wasn’t much better: he was carried across the finishing line by two of his trainers. Hicks’s trainers had tried to enhance his running ability by feeding him a mix of egg whites, strychnine and brandy. This early attempt at a performance-…………………………….. drug was rather unsuccessful, as it left Hicks drunk and incapable. The trick of having two men carrying him, though, seems to have worked.

The motivation for cheating hasn’t changed much at all. Today, athletes compete primarily for the …………………………… of being awarded a gold medal, but also for the enormous amounts of lucrative corporate sponsorship bestowed upon top sportspeople. Similarly, while ancient Greek athletes were officially only competing for the honour of being awarded a symbolic …………………………… ……………………….. , winners were usually sponsored by their city state, receiving a large sum of money, or a new home, or a lengthy tax holiday.
As mentioned earlier, the connection between sport and business hasn’t changed much. Even in the earliest Olympics, sporting competition went alongside ……………………. ………………………… and business deals. This was acknowledged in 19