The Olympic games in Athens 2004 – what a great occasion! I was fortunate enough to spend ten days at the games lending our voices and support to many competitors proud to wear the Great Britain colours. But, you know, it wasn’t really about that – the character, spirit and camaraderie shown between the competitors and supporters alike is something that will remain with me for the rest of my life. As will the efforts of the paralympians.
No amount of research, unfortunately, can uncover who this statue actually is? Suffice to say it was situated between the main gymnastics hall and the athletics stadium. I’m guessing that it was a famed Greek competitor from the first modern games, also held in Athens in 1896. In this picture, my housemate John provides a great imitation of the unknown athlete, capturing the good vibes and celebratory nature of the occasion perfectly. He could have done a bit of work on cultivating his moustache to be even more alike though!
I cannot talk about the Olympics without mentioning the sterling work of the Ultimate Olympian, who, in his own unique way, is just as worthy as the competitors at the Athens games. Visit his site and lend him your support straight away…
5 comments:
hmmm. more combat sandals.
Nice.
have just found your blog, very cool. You may want to see www.dotdashdashdot.blogspot.com
Am pleased to say that the Ultimate Olympian has done some sterling research into our moustach'ioed statue!
Taken from this:
"One stopping point at the complex was at the statue of Spiridon Louis, who despite wearing a vest and shorts was repeatedly mistaken for a being a Greek god rather than a mortal Olympic runner, albeit one whose feat has passed into legend.
Louis carved a place in Greek history by winning the 1896 inaugural marathon when the Olympics were revived in Athens.
More prosaically, his plinth was chosen as a meeting place for U.S. magazine Sports Illustrated, which told guests to meet there if they got lost at the men's gymnastics preliminaries.
The invited throng, including several car dealers whose firms advertise in its pages, were rather confused but Benjamin Westover, an Olympics volunteer from St. Louis, could have set them straight: "He has to be a modern day runner because he is wearing shorts. In ancient times, they ran naked."
Probably a good job for all of our readers that this wasn't an imitation of an ancient runner then.
Don't be modest Pete - I've just been over to dotdashdotdash and found this:
http://dotdashdashdot.blogspot.com/2005/02/pete-with-man-with-fish.html
An excellent effort!
I second SwissToni. Sterling fish work!
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