OLYMPIC GAMES.

Wairarapa Age, Volume XXVIX, Issue 8125, 27 April 1906, Page 5

OLYMPIC GAMES.

BESULT OF'SWIMMING CONTEST. ■- ' Received April 26, 10.33 a.m. ' \ < ATHENS, April 25. ; At the • Olympic contests the first beat of'the hundred metres swimming'race resulted as follows: Paniels (New York), 1;. Healy (Australia), *2; Derbyshire (England), 3. The final was won by, Daniels, Heal way (Hungary) second,' and Healy third, > . ' ' (The Olympic games were the most splendid- national-'festival of theancießt Greeks; and were celei brafced every fifth year in honour of '.Zens,' the father.of the Gods, on plain of Olympia. The origin goes back far beyond 776 ii.O,; in which the oustoni of reoKoning time by Olympiad? began/ Women—with one exception, the priestess -! df liemeter Ohamyne—\yere forbidden to be present on pdia of being thrown headlong from tne, Typaen Keck. The competitors l were required to, undergo a prepar-atory-training fob ten modtbs in ihe gymnasiums at Elis, and diirhig the last of the«e months'the gym-nasium-was almost' as numerously attended, as uhe games themselves. Muoh uncertainty prevails as to the manner In 1 whioh the oontests were distributed 'over the different days. On the first day'the competitors were , properly classed snd arranged by the judges; the second day was set apart for the boys, who competed' with each other in'foot races, wrestling, boxing, thepentai;hlon,~ tbe'packratiou, in> whioh' all the powers and skill of'the com-' bafcants were exhibited, horseraces; thethird and" principal 'day was de> voted to the oontests of men in foot racbs of different kinds,' wrestling boxing, the paukratiun, < and the trase of hoplites,' or men in heavy armour; on the fourth day. came off .the pentathlon, the chariot and horse • raoes; the fifth day was set apart . for processions, ahd banquets to, the victors; Theodosius I.'prohibited the games in 394 A.D. .Theodosius 11. ordered the buildings to -ba burnt. Olympic games were in a fashion revived in Athens in 1896,) _! -