Nothing quite brings history to life like losing a race at the site of the ancient Olympic Games in Greece. On a visit to Olympia in 2017, I managed this ignominious feat among friends on the very course of the Olympic sprint. In doing so, I joined a long parade of utterly forgotten obscurities: the athletes who made it to those games and lost. History recalls little of what they did there.
The modern Olympic Games have been around for 128 years, but as they were inspired by these ancient contests, they can lay claim to a history even more extensive than that. Those interested in this legacy need not visit the ruins in Olympia, however: The modern Olympic Games have already produced ruins of their own. Structures used in the 2016 Rio de Janeiro games have since joined their abandoned forebears in Athens, Berlin, and elsewhere. Sarajevo’s 1984 Winter Olympics edifice featured prominently in the wars that tore Bosnia and Herzegovina apart a few years later. Look upon these works, ye mighty, and despair.
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