The Ancient Greeks’ Greatest Sport Star
Milo of Croton (flourished 6th century BC) was the most famous and celebrated ancient Greek sport figure. A wrestler of great renown, he was also a renowned warrior who led his fellow citizens to military victory. Freakishly powerful, Milo carried a bull on his shoulders by way of strength training, and his daily diet included twenty pounds of meat, twenty pounds of bread, washed down by ten liters of wine. To intimidate opponents, he ate raw bull’s meat in their presence, and drank raw bull’s blood. His string of athletic victories was unprecedented and unsurpassed. He dominated the quadrennial Panhellenic Games – the Olympic, Pythian, Nymean, and Isthmian – for decades.
Croton, modern Crotone in southern Italy, was famous for its people’s physical strength, and the city produced generations of sport stars. In the 576 BC Olympics, for example, the first seven finishers in the 200-yard sprint, the stadion, were all from Croton. Milo surpassed all who came before him. In a decades-long stretch from 540 BC to about 516 BC, he won the wrestling championship in six Olympic Games, seven Pythian Games, nine Nemean Games, and ten Isthmian Games. He was also a five-time Periodonikes – a kind of “grand slam” title bestowed upon somebody who was crowned champion in all four Panhellenic Games in the same four-year cycle.