英语作文...关于奥运会的... 谁能给我一些素材..或者某方面的内容...

The Olympic Games were a series of athletic competitions held for representatives of various city-states of Ancient Greece. Records indicate that they began in 776 BC in Olympia, Greece. They were celebrated until 393 AD. when an earthquake destroyed Olympia^. The Games were usually held every four years, or olympiad, as the unit of time came to be known. During a celebration of the Games, an Olympic Truce was enacted to enable athletes to travel from their countries to Olympia in safety. The prizes for the victors were laurel wreaths, palm branches, sometimes even food for life. The ancient Olympics were rather different from the modern Games. There were fewer events, and only free men who spoke Greek could compete (even though a woman is also mentioned as a winner). Athletes from any country or city were allowed to participate. The Games were always held at Olympia, as with the Cotswold Olimpick Games, instead of moving around to different places for each separate Olympic festival as is the case in the modern Olympics.

The origins of the Ancient Olympic Games are unknown, but legends and myths have survived. One myth about the festival at Olympia involved Pelops, king of Olympia and eponymous hero of the Peloponnesus, to whom offerings were made during the Games. The Christian writer Clement of Alexandria asserted, "[The] Olympian games are nothing else than the funeral sacrifices of Pelops."^[ That myth tells of how Pelops overcame the king and won the hand of his daughter Hippodamia so that he could become king, with the help of Poseidon, his old lover. This is a myth linked to the later fall of the house of Atreus and the sufferings of Oedipus. Another myth tells of the hero Hercules, or Herakles, who won a race at Olympia and then decreed that the race should be re-enacted every four years. Yet another myth claims that Zeus initiated the festival after his defeat of his predecessor, the Titan Cronus. Some people state that the Greeks believed that the gods enjoyed watching sporting events. These games also served as a way to ready men for battle with skills like running, wrestling, throwing the javelin for accuracy, and throwing the discus for distance.

Another myth tells of King Iphitos of Elis, who consulted Pythia, the Oracle at Delphi, to find a way to save his people from war in the ninth century BC. This was the most respected temple in Greece, a religious center originally founded for the worship of Python. The prophetess advised him to organize games in honour of the deities. The Spartan adversary of Iphitos then decided to stop fighting during these games. They were called Olympic Games, after the sanctuary of Olympia where they were held. Had they been named after Mount Olympus, the mountain on which the Greek deities were said to live, they would have been called Olympian games rather than Olympic. The Classical era story is that Heracles celebrated cleaning the Augean Stables by building Olympia with help from Athena.