Сократи текст до 10 строк Probably the greatest honour that can come to an athlete is to win gold at the Olympic Games. But did you know that the idea of having Olympic Games is more than 2,500 years old? An ancient legend says that it was Hercules, son of Zeus, who started the Olympic Games. The earliest Olympic records we know about go back to the year 776 BC. The Greeks had the Games once in every four years for more than 1,000 years, until the Romans stopped them in 394 AD. The ancient Greeks believed the Games to be so important that they measured time by them. They called the four years an Olympiad. The Games were an example of the Greek idea that people should develop their bodies as well as brains. Nothing was serious enough to stand in the way of the Games. If a war was going on in the country, they stopped the war, not the Games. The ancient Olympics had only one athletic competition - a running race of about 183 metres (the length of the stadium). Only men could take part in the Games. The powerful Spartans changed the programme and included more sports in it. The winners of the Games became heroes in the country.