A quick glance at any artwork from Ancient Greece gives an idea of the almost religious importance of nudity, and if we interpret the images literally, how widespread its practice was in many aspects of daily life. One of these, surely the most well-known, is sports; athletes competed naked in the games from the 8th […]
Athletics
Posted inAncient Greece
Bybon, the Greek Athlete Who Lifted 143-Kilogram Stones with One Hand
Although his name doesn’t appear in epic tales or the legends of great heroes, a physical feat performed by an athlete in ancient Olympia has reached us thanks to an inscription. The athlete’s name was Bybon, and he lived in the 6th century BC, a time when sports and displays of strength were a fundamental […]
Posted inModern Era
The German female athlete at the 1936 Berlin Olympics who turned out to be a man
A recent case is that of Caster Semenya, South African athlete twice Olympic champion and three times world champion in the middle-distance (800 meters, to be exact), who in medical analysis was found to have a chromosomal abnormality that makes her produce three times more testosterone than normal and have internal male sex organs, which […]
Posted inModern Era
Luz Long, the German athlete who befriended Jesse Owens and helped him win at the 1936 Berlin Olympics
On 13 July 1943, a death occurred in the British field hospital in Acate, in the Sicilian province of Ragusa (Italy), which did not particularly attract the attention of the staff. After all, it was an enemy, a Luftwaffe obergefreiter (lance corporal) who was badly injured in defence of the island during the Allied invasion […]
