What's your discipline?

[Chuffy]

yeah but the olympics has been going on since greek times!
All the sports in it are originally derived from warfare, and not just any warfare - largely invading an opponent's castle. Running etc., obvious need for speed on foot before tanks were invented.
Pole vault - easy, that would be to get over the castle wall. Triple jump? That derives from the need to clear the moat. Discuss, Shot put, hammer - they were all used as forms of attack on the castle in ancient times.
All these modern arty ones like gymnastics, synchronised swimming etc that are judged rather than longest/furthest/quickest have basically just been put in within the last 50 years or so in order to make it more appealing to women.

OK. The original Greek Olympics ended a very long time ago (393AD). There was a gap of nearly 1500 years. In the late 19th C a nice man called Baron de Coubertin decided to re-create them. These are the modern Olympics and have always featured cycling.

The original Olympics mainly featured athletic events. Other events included

Over the years, more events were added: boxing (pygme/pygmachia), wrestling (pale), pankration (regulated full-contact fighting, similar to today's mixed martial arts), chariot racing, several other running events (the diaulos, hippios, dolichos, and hoplitodromos), as well as a pentathlon, consisting of wrestling, stadion, long jump, javelin throw and discus throw (the latter three were not separate events).

Hammer and shot put are conspicuous by their absence...

As for events deriving from the need to assault castles, well I'll leave discussions about castle design and the absence of castles from the Greek scenery to someone else.

 

[bonj2]

OK. The original Greek Olympics ended a very long time ago (393AD). There was a gap of nearly 1500 years. In the late 19th C a nice man called Baron de Coubertin decided to re-create them. These are the modern Olympics and have always featured cycling.

Bollocks! What about the torch that's been burning since it began, and is traditionally carried from one olympics to the next, over the 4 years?
The olympics only stops for wars, Chuffy! And only serious ones at that.

 

[Aperitif]

The other running events sound like salad dishes Chuffy.

Maybe bonj's hammer throwers and shot putters were so effective they demolished all the standing castles in Greece - the Greeks didn't include the events subsequently, as it gave them 'bad vibes'.

 

[pzycoman]

that looks like a 30degree curve to me, and if I'm not mistaken it looks like Majorca?

One of the top images in google image search for "Velodrome"

 

[Arch]

Discuss, Shot put, hammer - they were all used as forms of attack on the castle in ancient times.

Blimey, now bonj is setting essay questions. Although I think the format is more normally, "Shot put, hammer - they were all used as forms of attack on the castle in ancient times. Discuss"

 

[Fnaar]

All these modern arty ones like gymnastics, synchronised swimming etc that are judged rather than longest/furthest/quickest have basically just been put in within the last 50 years or so in order to make it more appealing to women.

Gymnastics = moving in unpredictable ways, to better dodge cannon balls and arrows.
Synchronised swimming: dazzling the opposition with the glare form your teeth, whilst swimming in the moat. Probably. Like this

 

[bonj2]

now that's just silly fnaar. I think it would only be valid to say that gymnastics originates from that if they actually fired cannonballs at them while they were doing it. which isn't a bad idea, but it's improbable that they put flour on their hands and hung from a bar and swung round while they were being shot at by french shoots in chain mail.

 

[PrettyboyTim]

Bollocks! What about the torch that's been burning since it began, and is traditionally carried from one olympics to the next, over the 4 years?
The olympics only stops for wars, Chuffy! And only serious ones at that.

It's not difficult to google these things instead of just spouting crap about subjects you know nothing about, Bonj...

Oh, and I find the idea of using a discus to knock down a castle very amusing.

 

[bonj2]

It's not difficult to google these things instead of just spouting crap about subjects you know nothing about, Bonj...

Oh, and I find the idea of using a discus to knock down a castle very amusing.

not knock the whole thing DOWN - just to take out the blokes standing at the turrets!

 

[Arch]

Bollocks! What about the torch that's been burning since it began, and is traditionally carried from one olympics to the next, over the 4 years?

Nope, wrong again. The flame isn't eternally burning, it's kindled from the sun for each games:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Olympic_Flame

"The Olympic Torch today is ignited several months before the opening celebration of the Olympic Games at the site of the ancient Olympics in Olympia, Greece. Eleven women, representing the roles of priestesses, perform a ceremony in which the torch is kindled by the light of the Sun, its rays concentrated by a parabolic mirror"