The first ancient Olympic Games was held in 776 BC. It began with a single event, the stade, a 200-yard foot race. This was the only event for the first 13 Games.
128 years after the founding, in 648 BC, mixed martial arts (pankration) was added. So running was in the Olympics before wrestling and fighting. But what were they running from? Wrestlers and fighters.
With various additions, the Olympics continued for a millennium, until in 394 AD, when it was banned by the Roman emperor Theodosius I, as part of his campaign to impose Christianity in Rome.
When the Olympics were reborn in Athens in 1896, pankration was missing, because while boxing and wrestling had flourished, through some quirk of history, mixed martial arts had not. However, things have changed, and MMA is now the world’s fastest growing sport.
One figure who is ready for the return of MMA to the Olympics after 1,622 years and counting, is actor, film director, producer, and two-time Academy Award winner Kevin Costner.
“I think it should be in the Olympics,” said Coster to a TMZ Sports freelancer. “I don’t know why it wouldn’t go in the next one. It’s pretty established itself as one of the greatest sports out there. I think its where the real tough guys exist.”
If history repeats itself, and it takes 128 years to go from founding to MMA, then the Games of the XXXIII Olympiad in 2024 will see us in the Olympics.
Bidding for the 2024 Olympics is well underway, having started in 2015. The host of the Summer Olympic Games will be announced at the 130th International Olympic Committee IOC Session in Lima, Peru on 13 September 2017. The current front runners are Budapest, Paris, Los Angeles, and Rome. Of the four, only Budapest in an Olympics virgin.
