About Carriage Driving

History

Pre-Olympics chariot races were part of " Funeral Games ". These were a tribute to the death of great Greek men. When festival games began at Olympia – the fore-runner to the Olympic Games chariot racing was included as well.

The first Olympic games are believed to have taken place in 776 BC. Events included Chariot Racing and Mule Cart Racing. The main difference was that the chariot driver’s stood up (protected by a knee-high barrier on the front and sides of their chariot) while the mule-drivers sat down and could not therefore go as fast. Because of the lack of speed this was less exciting as a spectator sport and was soon dropped from the Olympics.

The Olympic games were held over 5 days and chariot races and horse traces at the track were traditionally on Day 2. There was a barrier to protect the crowds from bolting horses or chariots running out of control. The racing was in the hippodrome (Hippos was the greek word for horse) which was actually outside the stadium.

The racing chariots used in the Olympics were not the same as the solidly built vehicles used in ancient warfare. They were lightweight carriages with two big wheels. The drivers stood over the axle holding the reins.

In the 4th Century AD when Christianity became the official religion of the Roman Empire, games were no longer in favour as their sacrifices honoured pagan gods. Early Christians were intolerant of any kind of non-christian worship anempid new religious beliefs led to the Olympics being finally abolished in AD393 by the Christian Emperor Theodosius the Great. In AD426 the temple of Zeus was burned down and in the 5th and 6th centuries the actual site of Olympia was wiped out by invasions, earthquakes and floods. For the next 1,000 years there were no Olympic games.

Between 1859 and 1889 the Greeks had held Olympic-style games four times but they had been purely local contests. The first modern Olympics were held in Athens in 1896.

Driving was internationally recognized as a competitive sport in 1969.

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