Outline: The Participation of Women and Minorities in the Olympic Games

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Thesis: The participation of women and minorities in the Olympics in the last one hundred years has changed throughout the course of history by minorities by taking charge with movements, by breaking the rules, and by slowly nudging their way into the olympic arena.

Paragraph 1: The ancient Olympic Games were the start of the Olympic games people know and love today.

A. Nowadays we have many different types of games people can compete in, however back then there were three main games that we participated to honor the gods.

i. The ancient games had very few rules and organization, despite this the games functioned well.

a. Some very strange rules during this time really shaped the games. One was in wrestling men were allowed to gouge eyes and bite people, but they were not allowed to intentionally hit or kick someone; if they infringed upon any of the rules then they would be whipped on the spot. Also, all other holds intended to persuade the opponent to concede defeat through pain or fear are permitted and are an integral part of the contest. Another rule widely known for being very out of the box is only free men who spoke greek were allowed to compete; that means no women and no poor men. In the running event, competitors were allowed to push and shove during this event. Killing an opponent during the games was not a good thing, as the dead boxer was automatically declared the winner.

b. The lack of rules and the oddness of the rules tended to cause some disagreement between the losers and the officials. If the loser of the event thought that the ways the winner won, whether is was by shoving, biting, or just being completely unfair, they say what they think. A few arguments and quarrels were the outcome of “unfair” callings. However, most losers would keep to themselves they did not want to cause a scene or dwell on the fact that they lost.

ii. The games throughout time have greatly changed and many have been added to make the games have a wider span on viewers and have a wider span of competitors.

a. Games back then were to show off strength and one’s body. Some examples are boxing, wrestling, diaulos, dolichos, hoplitodromos and pankration. Diaulos and dolichos were different running races of speed and agility. Hoplitodromos was “the race of soldiers” or an ancient foot race.

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