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The stadion
THE OLYMPIC GAMES
The modern marathon
During the Olympic Games people would sleep in tents around the stadion. The stadion was 200 metres long and 30 metres wide.
It was in a valley, with rows of seats sloping up the hillside on either side, and the starting line for the athletes was marked by a line of stones set into the ground. The surface of the stadion was white sand.
The modern marathon is one of the most famous Olympic events. The race commemorates the amazing journey of the runner Pheidippides who carried the news that the Persian army had landed at the coastal city of Marathon, north east of Athens, to Sparta
300 km away (see page 37).
However, the marathon was not part of the ancient Greek Olympics. It is a modern event that was introduced in the first modern Olympic Games in Athens in 1896. On that date the marathon was a race from Marathon to the Olympic stadium, just 40 kilometres. The standardised marathon is 26 miles 385 yards or 42.2 km. It was established in 1908 when the Olympic Games were held in London. This was the distance between Windsor Castle, the start of the race, and the finish line inside London’s White City Stadium.
Entrance to the stadion from temple area.
Temple of Hera
Stadion
Temple of Zeus
Lodging house
G 3 The Olympic sprint – the stadion
– was named after the race track area
in which it took place. This word became stadium in Latin, which is how the building for holding athletics and other games became the English word stadium.
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