Women Couldn’t Compete In The Ancient Olympics, So They Held The Heraean Games Instead

Cool Weird Awesome with Brady Carlson

In ancient Greece, the Olympics were for men only. But from what we can tell, women representing 16 city-states would come together every four years to weave a robe for Hera, the queen of the gods, and hold a footrace for single women. Plus: the 1960 Summer Games were the first to be telecast in the US. In the days before satellites, it took a lot of work to get tapes from the Rome Games to the US broadcast networks.

The Women: Were The Ancient Olympics Just For Men? (Penn Museum)

Rome, Italy, 1960 (Britannica)

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