How fast do you think the ancient olympians were?

Surprise! wrote:
suckas yo suckas wrote:
I would think that the best would be somewhere between a national high school champion's and a professional runner's ability.
Think about it. Basically you have guys with no cars and eating healthy. These are men that LIVED fitness. Not just an hour or two everyday. Essentially, they lived like the African runners, probably with a more-rounded fitness. Maybe a faster version of Lukas Verzbikas or however you spell his name.
Think of the origin of the marathon. That was those guys.
The one assumption everyone is making is that people actually wanted to or had motivation to see how fast they could be at a given distance.

The Ancient Olympics were also a religious festival. Winners often got statues made of them to be mounted on Mount Olympus to stand along with the Greek Gods. Virtually all Greek males were allowed to compete, but the winners were generally soldiers.

We know that ancient soldiers could peform feats that a modern solider just couldn't. And it's not just speculation or from dubioius historical sources. Archaologists can track, for example, how fast Roman soldiers could march with heavy equipment.

No doubt an Ancient Greek soldier was exceptionally fit and strong, often literally trained from birth to be a physical speciman. Those specializing in running would be national class today at least, and I'm sure over the course of the Ancient Olympics history of centuries, they produced some ridiculous talents.

The Ancient Olympic Games lasted for around 1,000 years. Modern Olympics have been around for 128 years. Professional running has been around for 50 years or so. Given that the Ancient Greeks were the most logical and intelligent people who ever lived, do you really think they wouldn't have figured out some modern training methods over 1,000 years?

duckshirt wrote:
They obviously did not run the same events, but what events did they do, and how fast do you think they could run compared to today? Supposedly their longest event was somewhere around our 5000m (I forget where I heard that). My guess is that they were faster than the original modern olympics in 1896 at least (I mean, geez, even I can beat some of those times)...

my understanding is they ran multiples of "stades," ie laps around the stadium, with the loop being about 190m. common races, 1 stade or 2 stades. or up to about 20 stades which is roughly 2.25 miles. the first two seem basically like an indoor 200 or 400.

i think the horseshoe athens stadium from 1896 is supposed to be semi-like what it used to be (and was built on the ruins of an all old racetrack). i've actually run on the thing. it's long with less curve.

the romans would have understood time in terms of the sun and the hour. minutes and seconds are a mechanical thing which is roughly renaissance to industrial era. like the poster said, it would have been about who won the race. not what time.

if we put a watch to it, i assume worse than 1896. 1896 they had the beginnings of leather running shoes with spikes. if you look at 1896 olympic times it's basically JV level times, 12s 100m, 54s 400m, 4:33 1500m, and that's for the fastest.

the quasi-fascist thing pretending about natural foods, they did mill and ferment some stuff, but you're reading modern sensibilities and knowledge into the past. they would not have eaten well, they would have gorged. they would have understood marching and getting people used to walking distances. i don't think they would have had a clue how to make a runner. they would have picked natural ones. who would then probably get out of shape or ill and become useless. they would have run barefoot. the land in greece is mountainous/craggy/rock hard. there were no antibiotics. there was poor sanitation. life expectancy was like 20-30 years. it's a fake golden age to imitate.

How fast do you think the ancient olympians were?

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