![]() ![]() These bases were filled in with wood, which was removed, oiled, and stored when games were not being held. At both ends of the track, engineers placed stone support bases for a starting gate. Most contemporary knowledge of the hysplex comes from four tracks at Epidauros, Isthmia, Nemea, and Corinth. The perpetual reworking of the stone balbis is one indication of how seriously the Greeks took these athletic events. The precursor to the starting block, called a balbis, was redesigned at several stadiums to accommodate a starting gate, even when it meant reducing the number of runners or the width of the track to provide room for the starting gate. Ropes stretched in front of the runners fell in unison onto the track, releasing them to begin the race. The Greeks ran from a stone starting gate along a central rectangular track. As a technology of fairness, the starting blocks helped turn foot racing into an ideal for egalitarian citizenship.Īncient Greek stadiums show continual upgrades to the starting line of the race. They also detect false starts, putting the race behind the feet of the sprinter as much as in front of them. ![]() But today, they do more than just help runners get off the line. They required all runners to direct their energy horizontally-instead of vertically-at the race’s start. The starting blocks helped runners take the crouching position developed in the late 19th century by American and Australian sprinters. When the modern Olympic sprints commenced in 1896, runners improvised their start, choosing to crouch or start in the ancient style as they wished. Later, they designed a gate called a hysplex that released runners at the same time. First, they gave the runners a place to put their feet at the beginning of the race. As the Greeks designed and redesigned the games, they invented ways to make racers take the field in a uniform manner. It spread to the other Panhellenic games throughout the Mediterranean. The stadion race of 600 podes (locally determined “feet”) began the tradition of sprints at Olympia. The start of competitive foot races like those of the Olympics have only recently evolved into the test of nerves and alertness they currently are. But sprints last 400 meters or less, so every millisecond spent on the blocks after the race has begun is a millisecond wasted. If the sprinter pushes off too soon, it means disqualification from the race. As soon as the sound waves of the signal reach their ears, their feet catapult off the blocks. Before the start signal, the runners rest their knees on the ground, then transfer their weight squarely on the blocks. When sprinters take their marks, they place their hands on the ground and position their feet onto angled blocks.
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