The original Olympics began as part of an Ancient Greek festival, which celebrated Zues, the Greek God of sky and weather. The whole competition lasted for up to six months, and included games like wrestling, boxing, long jump, javelin, discus and chariot racing.
In 393 AD, the Olympic Games were cancelled and didn’t start up again for over 1,500 years. Emperor Theodosius I, a Roman ruler, banned the Greek Olympics due to the religious element of the celebration. He considered the Olympics to be a pagan festival, which had no place in his Christian country. So, that was the end of the Olympics until 1894, when a man named Baron Pierre de Coubertin started a revival of the Games. He called this new event the ‘modern Olympics’ – and it’s still going today!
