Olympics Sports List
Odysseus was challenged by the Phaeacians to demonstrate his prowess as an athlete. In general, Greek culture included both cultic sports, such as the Olympic Games honouring Zeus, and secular contests. In Turkey, where the composite bow was an instrument of great power, archers competed for distance. At Istanbul’s Okmeydanı (“Arrow Field”), the record was set in 1798 when Selim III’s arrow flew more than 2,900 feet .
Like the highly evolved civilizations of which they are a part, traditional Asian sports are ancient and various. From the Islamic Middle East across the Indian subcontinent to China and Japan, wrestlers—mostly but not exclusively male—embodied and enacted the values of their cultures. The wrestler’s strength was always more than a merely personal statement. More often than not, the men who strained and struggled understood themselves to be involved in a religious endeavour. Prayers, incantations, and rituals of purification were for centuries …