A human being achieves order in relation to that which is not human. When pondering the world of the Olympic athlete, we see this law in effect. The earliest Olympic athletes in Ancient Greece oriented themselves toward the supernatural. They strove to be like the swift-footed gods. Sacrifices were offered on altars before the start of the athletic games, which took place outside the sacred temple zone. Body and spirit were working toward some kind of balance. They were not at constant war.

The contemporary Olympic athlete, by contrast, defines himself in relation to the machine. His existence is reduced to highly-exacting scientific regimens designed to make both body and mind conform to machine-like regularity and control. He lives for years in an artificial, denatured world of flourescent-lit gyms and fitness machines. He is fed scientifically, like a laboratory animal. He wears not clothes, but freakish synthetic outfits invented by scientists and athletic technocrats. He has no leisure. His mind is bent at all times, as he stands before the control panel of his own body, upon infinitesimal differences in performance. A split second can make all the difference, in the way a split second can make all the difference in the smooth functioning of mechanical gears. Athletics supposedly make him a better person.  But it must take him years after leaving this confining, technocratic sphere in which body and spirit are estranged to conquer the wild frontiers of his own soul.

— Comments —

Hurricane Betsy writes:

While every word in the second paragraph strikes me as accurate, not to mention beautifully written, I am not sure we can know exactly what the attitude of the original Olympians was or much about their training.  Maybe they didn’t train at all, but were merely born exceptionally robust and talented?  I’ll own up to not having done any reading on this topic at all.

In any case, today’s ultra-athletes are fascinating to watch, I sit in front of the tee vee for hours every four years (I generally dislike the track & field-heavy summer games.)  I don’t see these androids as particularly healthy apart from their one-trick-pony undertakings, mind you. You mention the athletes’ lives after their best days are gone.  I suspect they never return to normal, at least not the Westerners;  the Chinese appear to be better suited to the artificial, stilted years of training, as it’s just a  ramped-up version of their day to day lives and attitudes anyway.

I’m hoping for the development of a Natural Olympics, though I’m not sure what the characteristics or boundaries of such games would be or how it could even be regulated.

 Laura writes:

The Ancient Greeks left a substantial record of their games, which took place in Olympia, the religious center where Zeus was said to have wrestled his father Kronos and Apollo defeated Hermes in a race. The athletes trained together for a month before the games began, according to Gods and Heroes by Herbert Kubly. The games took place over five days in the summer every four years. All wars were suspended and athletes came from all over the Mediterranean region.

Bert Perry writes:

Regarding the idea that ancients did not train, the Greeks left gymnasia (hence the name of the German high schools, by the way) all around the Mediterranean where people could indulge in athletic, intellectual, and other pursuits.  The robust forms of male sculpture in those days were not accidental, to put it mildly—those were NOT builds developed by going out into the vineyard and pruning vines, or herding sheep.  It was from gymnastic and acrobatic exercises—remember the Persian amazement at the Spartan hoplites doing their calisthenics just prior to battle at Thermopylae?

So I think you’ve got a point.  I can’t remember when it was, but somebody back in the 1970s (perhaps Frank Shorter) commented that American athletes have the most expensive urine in the world due to the amount of supplements they take, and he wasn’t even joking about steroids and such.  We are all about the science now, it seems.

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