Athletes 'honored' to compete at Ancient Olympia

By JENNIFER BROOKS

The Detroit News

OLYMPIA, Greece - This once was sacred ground.

For the athletes who stepped onto the ancient playing field of Olympia on Wednesday, it still is.

For the first time in almost 2,000 years, the sun-blasted hills of Olympia echoed with the cheers of Olympic spectators. The Games have come home.

"I feel so small, being in this ancient place," said Greek shot putter Kalliopi Ouzouni, awed by the setting and huge crowd at this remote site where the Olympic shot put finals were held. "It's the first time so many Greeks have come to watch shot put."

It was a once-in-a-lifetime chance to watch athletes competing on the same hard-packed earth where ancient Olympians once raced. An estimated 15,000 people took advantage of free tickets to the event, crowding the grassy slopes around the old stadium as the Games returned to the place where they were played for their first 1,000 years.

The Olympians took the field by the same ancient route athletes have always followed here: Through the ruins of the sacred precinct, the Altis; past olive trees the ancients once wove into victory wreaths; past the sanctuaries of the gods; and onto the field first carved out for track-and-field competitions in 776 B.C.

"There's something special about this place," said silver medalist Adam Nelson of the United States. "It brings out a certain emotion in me as an Olympic athlete. It is something that is pretty powerful. You feed on it and let it take you to the next level."

Shot put was never part of the original Games.

The first Olympians were racers. Over the centuries, the Olympic festival expanded to include the javelin, discus, boxing, chariot races and the nasty, extinct grappling sport of pankration.

Still, the shot putters forged their own connection to the glorious history of the place.

"I think the Greek gods helped me with the gold medal today," said Russia's Irina Korzhanenko, the first woman in 3,000 years to compete and win in Olympia's stadium.

Over the long centuries, the temples and treasuries of Olympia have crumbled into ruin - the ancient gymnasium is nothing but a stubble of pillars now, the great statue of Zeus that used to be one of the wonders of the world vanished long ago - but the stadium survived.

Along its long, narrow length, strips of grooved marble still mark the ancient starting line for the footraces - one stadia in length. Spectators still watch the action from the same sloped grassy hillside.

In its day, the Olympic stadium was the largest athletic field in the world. For 1,000 years, the best athletes and swiftest horses would come here to compete under the flag of an Olympic truce for the glory of the gods and the personal wealth and glory they would reap on their return home. "It was awesome to walk into the stadium this morning. Thousands of people were there all wanting you to throw far," U.S. shot putter John Godina said. "The environment is really friendly. It's hot and dry, you cannot ask for more than that."

Remarkably, the 3,000-year-old field still gives good play.

"We were worried it might not be in shape," U.S. shot putter Reese Hoffa said. "But they made sure it was not too rough, not too slick. It was pretty awesome. I had to try to keep myself focused on the quality of my game, not where I was. I had a lot of fun doing it."

For the spectators, who spent a long day under the blazing sun in the western Peloponneses, there was dust, aggravation, not enough snack stands or sanitation - but endless wonder.

"This event will be in the history pages," said Zdzislaw Zielonka, president of a Polish Olympic fan club, his neck sparkling with pins collected from each of the seven Olympics he has attended.

Said Milan Mitra of Passaic, N.J., an Olympic volunteer who made the four-hour trek to Olympia to watch the competition: "Just the experience of being here is causing me to travel back in time. The slogan for the Olympics is `Welcome Home,' and now they really are coming home. It's fantastic."

This is the place where the Olympic flame is kindled.

This is the place where, legend says, Hercules laid down the rules for the first Olympic Games and set down the measurements for the first stadium.

This is the place where Alexander the Great competed in the chariot races - because even to a man who had conquered half the world, an Olympic victory wreath was something special.

That hasn't changed.

But almost everything else at Olympia has.

The mere presence of the women on the field and in the crowd proved that.

"It was great to compete in a place where women were forbidden," Ouzouni said.

Not only were women forbidden to participate in the ancient Games, it was an offense punishable by death for them to even watch the men compete.

But the more things change, the more they stay the same.

The modern Olympics didn't invent the athletic scandal. The athletes' route into the stadium used to be lined with statues paid for by fines levied on athletes caught cheating.

"I had really serious problems with my concentration due to what has happened with my fellow athletes (Greek sprinters Kostas Kenteris and Katerina Thanou, who withdrew from the Games in the face of a growing doping scandal)," Ouzouni said.

But for most of the athletes and spectators, the only thing on their minds was how lucky they were to see this day.

"This is a great honor for us," Olympia native Amalia Stefosi said. "Today, the whole world is watching. I have never seen such a day. It is wonderful, wonderful."