Crazy Classicists at the Olympics!

I have decided that I would like the Olympics a whole lot more if they were still run by a bunch of vaguely incompetent classicists with little to no athletic training and a knowledge of their sport derived entirely from reading the ancient accounts and looking at vase paintings. And then getting it wrong. And if the American team was still made of plucky underdogs, who made the team mostly because they were willing to go to Athens for a couple of weeks.

You might wonder how I came to this conclusion. It came from watching a very amazing movie. If ever you are looking for an exceedingly pleasant way to spend approximately 4 hours and 40 minutes, my suggestion would be to watch The First Olympics- Athens 1896. My mother found this fabulous movie at the library the other day, and my family has just finished watching it. It is wonderful. Also, it is very informative, since I think that the broad picture that it paints is more or less accurate, even if the details have been changed slightly for dramatic effect.

And what I learned was that the Athens 1896 American Olympic Team was really cool. They didn't have much of an idea of what they were doing, apparently- they were fine with shooting and running, but in terms of track and field events, I think they were pretty much making it up. And they made it up with classics. Apparently they didn't have a discus, so they found a picture of one on a vase and brought it to their local blacksmith, who made them a discus of iron which weighed 30 pounds or something. But, from this somewhat shaky beginning, they went to Athens and actually did really, really well. (And won the discus event. Sweet.) And, the next year, they ran the first Boston Marathon, because they ran a marathon in Athens and thought the symbolism was cool.

Anyways, this actually was a pretty good movie, which I enjoyed immensely. I'm quite serious. The acting was uneven, and the film was unabashedly sentimental and pro-American, but it was uplifting and pleasant and a nice mixture of funny and interesting. And it's not that I don't like the Olympics of the present day- I like the winter Olympics if only because it's one of the only chances one gets to watch curling on television- but I think they were sort of cooler when they weren't so regulated and high tech. And the people wore doofy shorts and shoes that looked like jazz shoes.

On the question of marathons, I am now extremely confused. Because in Herodotus, it seems pretty clear that Phidippides was an Athenian who ran to Sparta in two days, and saw Pan while he was running through the mountains, etc. But the movie pretty specifically said that he was the guy who ran from Marathon to Athens after the battle of Marathon, and died after announcing his message with a smile on his lips, etc. So what is going on? Specifically, where does this second story come from? I have to do some research.