OLYMPIA was a small plain on the northern bank of the Affios river in a fertile, hilly region west of Athens. It was here the Olympian Games, one of the four great festivals of ancient Greece, dedicated to Zeus and said to have been founded by the legendary Hercules, were held every fourth year.
In troubled times, a sacred truce was proclaimed for the occasion and safe passage was guaranteed to spectators and participants alike.
At first, the games comprised a single foot race of 200 yards. They then progressed to include a long race, the pentathlon and boxing, and then a chariot race and a race for ridden horses, all in a great stadium capable of holding 40,000 people.
The official prizes were mere wreaths of wild olive, but the winner received copious rewards at home where his victory was held to confer a signal honour on his country.
These original Olympian Games were held regularly from 776 BC to the end of the 4th century AD. They were revived, after a gap of more than 1,500 years, in 1896, and it was during these first Olympics of the modern era that we see the weather emerge as a factor of critical importance.
At that first modern Olympiad, rowing and sailing races had to be abandoned because of severe weather near Athens. Later, for the same reason, the closing ceremony of those 1896 Olympics was delayed a day.
Sometimes it worked the other way at the 19th Olympiad in Mexico in 1968, a particularly favourable combination of meteorological conditions and high altitude led to the establishment of five new records in the triple jump.
Nowadays, as we know, the Olympian festival moves around the world, and when a city is a candidate to host the games, the climatological records for the region are examined closely.
The prospective site is required to meet exacting criteria as regards temperature patterns, humidity levels, average rainfall and variability of wind this last being of particular importance since official Olympic records in athletics can only be approved if the wind at the time is less than two metres per second.
Throughout the games, weather bulletins in many languages are broadcast many times each day to help athletes and their entourage prepare for competitions.
Indeed, for very weather sensitive events like sailing, it is common for competitors to have a resident meteorologist on their team to provide a detailed local interpretation of the general weather pattern so that every possible advantage can be taken of available conditions.