Some additional historical perspective on athletic nudity in Greek from academia exploring the introduction of nudity in the Greek Olympic Games. The quote and the two papers by the same authors illustrate that nudity was not always a part of the Olympics. In fact there were 15 Olympiads over 50 before the introduction of any nudity in the games. They suggest its introduction was utilitarian in nature. Not some high minded acceptance of public nudity, as is oft implied in current modern nudist mythology.Nudity at the Olympic Games was neither primitive nor original, by all accounts it was deliberately introduced around the l5th Olympiad or 720BCE, more than 50 years after the traditional founding of the Games.11 Before that, athletes presumably competed in loincloths (zomata) that covered their genitals, as they had in Homer's epics-our earliest written account of Greek athletics. Outside of sport and certain religious rituals, nudity was and always had been considered shameful in Greek societyInterestingly enough, explanations for the introduction of athletic nudity at the ancient Olympic Games include (l) performance enhancement and (2) safety. The 2nd c. CE travel writer Pausanias tells us that Orsippus of Megara initiated the practice by winning the footrace after losing his loincloth. "My own opinion," Pausanias adds, "is that at Olympia he intentionally let the girdie slip off him,realizing that a naked man can nm more easily than one girt."3 On the face of it, this story seems plausible since we commonly think of athletes as doing anything and everything to improve their performance. Dionysius of Halicarnassus concurs that the runner intentionally dropped his shorts, adding that before the incident Greeks were ashamed to appear naked at the Games.Ancient Athletic Nudity and the Olympic Ethos of AreteNaked Virtue: Ancient Athletic Nudity and the Olympic Ethos of Arete

In the text and footnotes of the cited "Naked Virtue: Ancient Athletic Nudity and the Olympic Ethos of Arete," it's fascinating how concepts regarding nudity in ceremony, sport and the Olympics varied in periods of history in their symbolism and significance. A nice overriding statement is: "The ancient Greeks acted as if everything was visible to the eagle-eyed god they honored at the Olympic Games. Athletes competed in the nude because they had nothing to hide and the virtue symbolized by their naked bodies itself was divinely beautiful." Whereas the modern Olympic Committee suggests games were universally performed naked, it appears that it was a gradual development that emerged around the 7th century BCE, perhaps initiated by performance and safety, and then taking on virtuous qualities. The Greeks did not appear to consider nudity shame-free, but may rather viewed that its heroic, divine, athletic, and youthful attributes trump the shame attached to the nakedness. Key for me is that there is a historical precedent in Greek culture that nudity implies authenticity, transparency and vulnerability, from which courage, integrity and glory arise.

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