Koroibos (Olympic Champion)

Koroibos von Elis (Κόροιβος, Coroebus) won (on July 21 or 22, 776 BC = Ol.1,1) in Olympia in the stadium run over approx. 192 meters. He is the first Olympian whose name was recorded. With it begins Olympic winners' list and the Olympics bill . However, it is already the 28th Olympiad according to the recording ordered by Lykurgos and Iphitos . It is also unclear whether there had previously been competitions in honor of the god Zeus at the same location and whether this date was real or fictitious.

According to tradition by Pausanias (5, 8, 6; 8, 26, 3-4), the grave of Coroebus was about 12 kilometers south-east from Zeus sanctuary of Olympia on a striking hill near the flow plane in which the Erymanthos in the Alpheios opens . Already in 1845/46 the grave of Koroibos was dug here. The excavation was financed by the Prussian King Friedrich Wilhelm IV. The excavation suggested by Ludwig Ross was directed by the architect Eduard Schaubert .

Is Reported that Coroebus a priest ( mageiros ) and social climbers from the landscape Elis to have been.

literature

• Ingomar Weiler , Christoph Ulf : Sport among the peoples of the Old World. An introduction. Darmstadt 1981, p. 110.
• Stefan Lehmann : Olympia, the grave of Koroibos and the ancient sciences in Halle , in: Olympically moves. Festschrift for the 60th birthday of Manfred Lämmer, ed. from the Institute for Sports History of the German Sport University Cologne and the Carl and Liselott Diem Archive, Cologne 2003, pp. 163–175.