Hey my athletes! Next Fri., Dec.9th from 11pm I'm gonna be back at Juice Berry to pay homage to "the best Olympic gymnast in Magna Graecia during V century B.C." (Pausanias). It deals with Iccus of Taranto.
He was the pentathlon (gr. pente-, five, + -athlon, competition: running, long jump, javelin throw, discus throw and wrestling, which divides into Graeco-Roman wrestling and freestyle one) winner of the LXXXIV Games (444 BC) or the LXX Games (472 BC) according to older sources, and the father of athletic dietology: he promoted diet as the basics of successful athletic work-out according to the "Ikkou deipnon or Icci Coena" (Iccus' dinner). In addition, he prepared himself physically before competing by following the ethical-religious Pythagorean concepts by abstaining from sexual intercourse as well. Actually, he is probably linked to the "Athlete of ancient Taras", whose glorious tomb was dug up on Dec.9th, 1959 at via Genova 9 in Taranto (IT): it showed off a skeleton of a 170cm-tall 77kg-weight and 30-year-old man originally surrounded by 4 urns, whose one has been lost, recalling all of his victories at the Panathenaics (gr. pan-, all + Athens: Games which took place in Athens only). Today, it is preserved at the National Archaeological Museum of Taranto.
The next appointment is two days after, Sunday 11th from 6pm again at Juice Berry, via Torino 162, Venice-Mestre (IT).
ph. by GDLart
