The 2020 Olympic Games, which began last month in Tokyo, are the first to be postponed due to a pandemic and the first to go without in-person spectators. But look back to their humble origins at Olympia, a valley in the northwestern corner of the Peloponnese region of Greece, and it's clear there have been an enormous number of Olympic firsts in the past 3,000 or so years. Don't expect to see the iconic torch and podium, or even women, at these games. Here's what you might have seen instead.
1. The first dozen ancient Olympics had just one event.
Although this year’s summer Olympics include 33 sports, in the beginning there was only one: a 192-meter sprint called the stadion, or stade. Legend has it that organizers chose this distance because it was how far the mythical hero Heracles (Hercules) could run on a single breath. The track ran the length of the stadium, with the start and finish marked only by dirt lines.
