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Tokyo 2020 Naked Games: Remembering the Olympics that starred nude athletes Who knew stripping nude was the norm for athletes in the Ancient Olympics? Discover the full starkness here!
By Sohinee Updated: 19 July 2021 4:21 PM
Traditionally athletes would practise gymnastics in the nude (Source: National Geographic Creative)
It was a men-only affair at the Ancient Olympics (Source: Buzzfeed Motion Pictures)
The Farnese Hercules (left), Spear-bearer and The Boxer at Rest
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Long before our God, who art in Heaven guilt-tripped us about our original birthday suit, the Greeks really embraced their skin – all holds, er, clothes barred. Sharing an intimate relationship with their naked-ness, the Greeks have been known to strut around with their stuff - in full naked glory and would also compete in the nude at the Ancient Olympics .
It's time for some confessions, before we move on - remember spending a minute too much on the sculpted body of Michelangelo's naked David or Myron's Discobolus , admiring every inch of it? If your mind did a mini flashback - then my point is successful. The Greeks really just loved being in their natural armour and couldn't get enough of it.
No wonder, we keep using phrases like 'Greek God' or 'Hellenic beauty' to laud people, even today. In fact, the word 'gymnastics' owes its etymology to the Greek word 'gymnos' which….yes, you guessed it, means 'naked'.
While there are certain confusions regarding the origin of the Olympic Games , it is believed that it was begun to honour Zeus, the God of Thunder and the King who reigned from Mount Olympus. All free male citizens of Greece were allowed to participate in the Ancient Olympic Games.
However, women were not allowed to take part in this event and instead had an Olympics all to themselves which was dedicated to Hera, the consort of Zeus. Even with women, nudity was very much on the scene as there have been instances of Spartan female athletes training bare-bodied to wrestling or running 'free' wearing short tunics with one breast exposed in symbolic honour to the Amazonian warrior women (cue: Wonder Woman, much?)
Going bare: Why did the stripping happen?
In Homer's Iliad , there are mentions of male athletes competing in the Homeric Olympics wearing a loincloth, while dating back to 720 BCE, the Ancient Olympics actually featured players who were ready to go bare. A runner by the name Orsippus (Orhippus) during the 15th Ancient Olympiad took the no-clothes way out on the track, where he was competing in the stade-one race.
Originally, athletes would wear only a loincloth and run at the Ancient Olympics - but an incident mentions that once a runner tripped and lost his loincloth, inspiring other athletes to run in the buff. I mean, why not - Greek athleticism was one of the greatest marks of heroism and there was no shame whatsoever in displaying their goods so publicly.
How would these modern athletes have looked on ancient Greek vases? Learn the top ten facts about the ancient Olympic Games: https://t.co/0hvB7YRZkC @usainbolt | @marianapajon | @MichaelPhelps | @Simone_Biles pic.twitter.com/nYMwkwPYWj
A thing of wonder, more than anything else, Greek Olympic athletes would coat their chiselled bodies with oil to accentuate the features and become a symbol of 'Greekness' and in this way, apparently, pay tribute to Zeus for having created this 'perfection' and enjoy demigod status.
Also supposed to encourage the ideas of power, confidence and dominance - male athletes really had a gala time being in the buff. In fact, there were other political associations too - by going naked, Greek athletes wanted to differentiate themselves from barbaric opponents, mainly, the Persians, who were shy to show their body.
In an attempt to capture the true marvel of the Greek athletic body, historian Donald Kyle , notes in his book Sport and Spectacle in the Ancient World , "The human body-male or female, fit or flabby, clothed or naked-is the ultimate symbol...In Archaic Greece, disrobing fully to become naked for sport became an assertive communication of maleness, ethnicity, status, freedom, privilege, and physical virtue."
Toned and ripped muscles and sculpted abs acted as the main fodder of artistic imagination during the Classical Period and went on to inspire creativity. The body of the Greek athlete was considered to be 'ideal' and therefore, it was the ready muse for sculptors and painters and even writers who heaved and sighed and steeped adulations to conjure this 'perfect' form in their art.
The Classical Period was inclined towards learning more about the human body and its form and therefore, most existing artworks and sculptures from that era show them as naked. What was started in Greece also spread to Rome as the Romans also began to learn the airs and emulated the form of the Greeks after adding their own touch, leading the way to Greco-Roman art.
Given the fascination artists had with the human body, especially that of athletes, there have been many stunning creations, most famous of which are Doryphoros, the spear-bearer by Polykleitos, Myron's Discus Thrower, the awe-inspiring Farnese Hercules and the Boxer at Rest, which uses the Hellenistic style of art.
Although it is a wild thought to even imagine a 'naked' Olympics these days, given the stigmatisation that has taken place, where people react loudly to scantily dressed athletes, let alone those in the nude, it's quite interesting to see the transition. While centuries later, these Greek God-like bodies still exist and athletes are also worshipped like demigods, the Tokyo Olympics will definitely not be seeing such an exhibition. But that's alright because the Greeks and Romans have done their bit in carving out athletic 'perfection' and immortalising them through their art for us to go back to, always.
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Rhythmic gymnast Marta Pagnini is an Olympic bronze medallist who is totally confident with her body.
She wants to promote a positive body message.
“I’m confident ... with my body and I shouldn’t be judged for my body, I should be judged for my
performance as an athlete. And from what I do as a woman, not for my body.”
SUBSCRIBE for the best interviews around the Olympics every Wednesday.
Rhythmic gymnast Marta Pagnini is an Olympic bronze medallist who is totally confident with her body.
She wants to promote a positive body message.
“I’m confident ... with my body and I shouldn’t be judged for my body, I should be judged for my
performance as an athlete. And from what I do as a woman, not for my body.”
SUBSCRIBE for the best interviews around the Olympics every Wednesday.
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What if Olympic athletes went back to competing naked?
(Image credit: Aris Messinis/AFP/Getty Images )
While modern shoes and athletic outfits offer some benefits to competitors, the psychological impacts of not wearing clothes might outweigh the physical effects.
Proper footwear that provides arch and heel support and cushioning for the ball of the foot significantly aids in running, jumping and making quick turns
Ancient Greek legend has it that in 720 BC, an Olympic athlete named Orsippus of Megara was competing in the 185m run when his loincloth slipped off. Rather than stop to hide his shame, Orsippus sprinted on and won the race. His triumphant example stuck. Nude athletic competition – often emphasised through the liberal anointment of olive oil – became all the rage in Greece, seen as the ultimate tribute to Zeus.
"There was this whole idea of Orsippus being heroic and victorious, and then celebrating that he was naked," says Sarah Bond, an associate professor of history at the University of Iowa. "The Greeks going naked became a way of recognising their Greekness and civility."
By the time the modern Olympics were revived in 1896, however, the cultural tides had long since turned. The organisers didn't even consider bringing back the Greek tradition of naked competition. And in modern athletic competition, clothing now also plays an essential role in performance – shoes offer grip and add a spring to a runner's step, swimming costumes can help swimmers slip through the water more easily and tight-fitting outfits can reduce wind drag.
This summer's Olympics in Tokyo, however, promise to be unusual in many ways, given the constraints of Covid-19. But what if the Games took an even more unusual step by reinstating the nudity of the original Greek Olympic tradition? While no one is seriously considering doing this, the idea does raise interesting questions about athletic performance, cultural norms, sexism and more.
For starters, competing in the nude would create awkward logistical issues for many athletes. While modern competitors often perform their sports virtually naked – wearing only skin-tight spandex, for example – certain pieces of clothing do serve important primary purposes: to hold women's breasts and men's genitals in place. "Without being crude, that does help in terms of comfort, at least," says Shawn Deaton, the special projects director of the Textile Protection and Comfort Center at North Carolina State University.
The Ancient Greeks competed naked to show off the physical power and prowess of the human body (Credit: Araldo de Luca/Corbis/Getty Images)
On the other hand, the degree to which clothing actually contributes to athletic performance (as opposed to just comfort) is less clear. According to Olga Troynikov, a professor of functional materials and human-centered engineering at RMIT University in Melbourne, it really just depends on the garment, its fit to an individual athlete's body and the sport. In general, though, apparel does a couple things for athletes, Troynikov says. First, it streamlines the body and "braces you together," allowing the power of muscles to be better directed to the task at hand. Weight lifting belts and spandex can be helpful, for example, to stabilise a competitor's muscles so they can direct all their energy toward the work they are doing. Without these garments, performance may suffer.
Very smooth clothing can also reduce resistance that the body encounters when moving through air or water—a boon for many types of sports. For example, in addition to shaving their legs, cyclists can also benefit from wearing tightly fitted clothing with very low resistance to air, and with strategically placed rough patches to create a beneficially configured wake behind them.
The most convincing example of athletic advantages afforded by clothing comes from swimming, however. In fact, the sport very nearly "became a competition in engineering rather than just in the athletic abilities of the human body", Troynikov says. This issue made headlines in 2008 when swimmers competing at the Beijing Olympics broke 25 world records – 23 of them by athletes wearing a specialised full body polyurethane suit called the LZR Racer.
According to NASA , whose scientists helped design the LZR Racer, the cutting-edge suit reduced skin friction by 24% and also compressed the wearer's body to lessen drag. In 2010, FINA, the international governing body of swimming, determined that the LZR Racer and similar suits conferred too unfair an advantage for the wearers. FINA now bans athletes from competing in any suit that aids speed, buoyancy or performance . In effect, this means that – aside from drag added by dangling breasts or genitals – going nude would probably not impact swimmers' performance that dramatically.
In terms of other summer sports, clothing's overall contribution to better times or scores is more questionable, Troynikov says. "There's a lot of claims that it does this and does that, but really, there's not much there."
Compression garments, for example, are designed to change the way blood flows through the body in order to improve oxygenation. In fact, the research is divided about 50-50 for and against improvement in performance when athletes wear these garments. "There's some research, but it's inconclusive," Troynikov says.
Shoes, on the other hand, are a different story, not just for increasing performance but also for ensuring safety. Proper footwear that provides arch and heel support and cushioning for the ball of the foot significantly aids in running, jumping and making quick turns. Shoes also reduce impact on the lower limbs, bones, ligaments and muscles. "The feet bear all the weight of the body," says Pamela McCauley, an industrial engineer at the Wilson College of Textiles at North Carolina State University. "That's why it's so essential to have excellent foot support, to support your body."
For safety, some sports require even more specialised footwear. Athletes competing in Olympic sailing, for example, rely on their shoes to reduce slipping and aid their stability when hanging off the side of the boat. This reduces the potential for dangerous accidents while also boosting performance. All told, McCauley says, "If they want to go back to doing the Olympics nude, that's fine, but at least keep the footwear."
Going in the nude may also influence who winds up competing. Shoes or no shoes, some athletes – if faced with mandatory nakedness – may choose to bow out of the Olympics in protest. More conservative nations may also ban their competitors from participating altogether. "For cultures in which modesty plays a great role, this just wouldn't be contemplatable," says Ruth Barcan, an honorary associate professor of gender studies at the University of Sydney, and author of Nudity: A Cultural Anatomy .
The LZR Racer swimsuit reduces drag on the wearers body as they move through the water (Credit: STR/AFP/Getty Images)
There would also be serious legal and ethical questions if athletes under the age of 18 were also required to compete in the nude. While male nude athletes as young as 12 participated in the ancient Greek Olympics, given the religious nature of the games, Bond says, sexual activity or sexualisation of athletes was strictly prohibited and would have been seriously frowned upon. That wouldn't be the case today. "Nakedness in the Olympic games had a different meaning back then," Bond says. "Today, it would become very inherently sexualised and very pornographic, and that would become very predatory, in turn."
In ancient Greece, the Olympics were also viewed by a primarily elite male audience, all of whom came from the same cultural and religious background (a few unmarried women were also allowed to attend). Today, on the other hand, the games are broadcasted to millions of people around the world. While conservative countries would likely ban stations from airing the Olympics, in more liberal places, "media companies would go wild with excitement", Barcan says.
The reactions among viewers, on the other hand, would be very mixed. "For every person who thinks something is artistic and noble and glorious, you'll have others who think it's disgusting," Barcan says. Social media would ensure that the full spectrum of views would spread far and wide, almost certainly affecting the performance of the athletes whose bodies were being scrutinised – for better or worse. The more uninhibited athletes might love the attention. "They'd have these perfec
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