音频下载[点击右键另存为][00:01.09]Passage 36. Olympic Games

[00:06.78]In ancient Greece athletic festivals were very important

[00:10.72]and had strong religious associations.

[00:13.35]The Olympian athletic festival held every four years in honor of Zeus,

[00:18.71]king of the Olympian Gods, eventually lost its local character,

[00:22.75]became first a national event and then,

[00:25.71]after the rules against foreign competitors had been abolished, international.

[00:30.96]No one knows exactly how far back the Olympic Games go,

[00:35.33]but some official records date from 776B.C.

[00:41.03]The games took place in August on the plain by Mount Olympus.

[00:45.84]Many thousands of spectators gathered from all parts of Greece,

[00:50.22]but no married woman was admitted even as a spectator.

[00:54.04]Slaves, women and dishonored persons were not allowed to compete.

[00:58.31]The exact sequence of events is uncertain,

[01:02.25]but events included boy’s gymnastics, boxing, wrestling, horse racing and field events,

[01:08.82]though there were fewer sports involved than in the modern Olympic Games.

[01:13.41]On the last day of the Games,

[01:16.48]all the winners were honored by having a ring of holy olive leaves placed on their heads.

[01:21.51]So great was the honor that the winner of the foot race

[01:25.34]gave his name to the year of his victory.

[01:28.94]Although Olympic winners received no prize money,

[01:32.56]they were, in fact, richly rewarded by their state authorities.

[01:37.71]How their results compared with modern standards,

[01:40.99]we unfortunately have no means of telling.

[01:44.05]After an uninterrupted history of almost 1,200 years,

[01:49.08]the Games were suspended by the Romans in 394 A.D.

[01:54.99]They continued for such a long time

[01:58.27]because people believed in the philosophy behind the Olympics:

[02:01.99]the idea that a healthy body produced a healthy mind,

[02:05.71]and that the spirit of competition in sports and games was preferable to the competition that caused wars.

[02:12.39]It was over 1,500 years before another such international athletic gathering took place in Athens in 1896.

[02:23.10]Nowadays,the Games are held in different countries in turn.

[02:26.94]The host country provides vast facilities,

[02:30.55]including a stadium, swimming pools and living accommodation,

[02:34.38]but competing countries pay their own athletes’ expenses.