Who, What, Why: Who was Leonidas of Rhodes?

Michael Phelps has broken a 2,000-year-old Olympic record by outperforming the 12 singular titles won by Leonidas of Rhodes. Who was this competitor whose record has taken two centuries to beat, asks Jon Kelly?

Phelps has an aggregate of 22 Olympic gold awards, however nine of these have come in transfers - regarding singular titles he has just barely passed the best competitor of the old world.

Leonidas of Rhodes contended in four progressive Olympiads in 164BC, 160BC, 156BC and 152BC and in each of these he won three distinctive foot races.

A competitor who won three occasions at a solitary Olympics was known as a triastes, or tripler. There were just seven triastes and Leonidas is the just a single known to have accomplished the respect more than once. Surprisingly, he was 36 when he did it on the fourth event - five years more seasoned than Phelps is today.

The three occasions at which he triumphed were the stadion, a run of approximately 200m; the diaulos, which was double the separation of the stadion; and the more extended hoplitodromos, or race in covering.

Not at all like most races, which were keep running bare, the race in defensive layer expected contenders to wear substantial fight adapt, conceivably containing a head protector, a breastplate, shin reinforcement and a shield produced using bronze and wood.

"To run every one of these occasions in a steady progression was a significant deed," says Judith Swaddling, senior keeper at The British Museum.

"He got through the qualification amongst sprinters and perseverance competitors," says Paul Cartledge, teacher of works of art at the University of Cambridge. The race in reinforcement had not beforehand been viewed as appropriate for sprinters (the Olympiads had as of now been going for a couple of hundreds of years).

"They were running in reinforcement, the temperature would be 40C. The conditions were phenomenally unpalatable, requiring totally unique muscles and gymnastic aptitudes."

There is almost no historical data about Leonidas, says Cartledge, and no pictures of him survive. Be that as it may, his name - gotten from the Greek word for lion - recommends he was a man of qualification. "He's presumably a privileged person, most likely well off, presumably from an athletic family," Cartledge says.

Prof Paul Cartledge talks about Leonidas of Rhodes with Martha Kearney on The World At One

Rhodes had a solid athletic custom. Another awesome Olympian from the island was the boxer Diagoras, who propelled a line of competitors. "Originating from Rhodes you are a bit on the edges," Cartledge says. "You presumably invested more energy than if you were from one of the more established urban areas."

There were no gold, silver or bronze decorations in Leonidas' day - races were victor brings all with the runner who started things out winning a straightforward olive wreath. After his demise "he was venerated as a neighborhood divinity" in Rhodes, says Swaddling.

He was additionally revered in antiquated Greek writing. Pausanias depicted him as "the most well known runner". In the third Century, Philostratus the Athenian wrote in his Gymnastikos that Leonidas' adaptability discredited all got knowledge about athletic preparing and body sorts.

A statue of him in Rhodes showed the legend: "He had the speed of a God." Quite a notoriety for Phelps to satisfy.