The Olympics Contestant Who Won Despite Being Dead
Pankration, meaning “all force”, was an ancient Greek martial art, considered to be the forerunner of today’s Mixed Martial Arts (MMA). It combined boxing and wrestling, and nearly everything was permitted except for biting and gouging, or attacking an opponent’s genitals. In the 564 BC Olympics, Ancient Greece’s most famous pankratist, Arrachion of Phigalia (died 564 BC) who had won in the 572 BC and 568 BC Olympiads, sought his third championship.
Arrachion managed to advance through the early rounds, and worked his way until he reached the title fight. There, with age perhaps catching up with him and slowing him down, he got into trouble. Arrachion’s opponent outmaneuvered him and got behind him, and with legs locked around the reigning champ’s torso and his heels digging into his groin, applied a chokehold.
Arrachion feigned a loss of consciousness, which fooled his opponent into relaxing a little. That was when the wily title holder snapped back into action, and snapped his opponent’s ankle while shaking and throwing him off with a convulsive heave. The sudden and excruciating pain induced Arrachion’s opponent into the Ancient Greek equivalent of tapping out, and he made the sign of submission to the referees.
However, in throwing off his opponent while the latter still had him in a powerful chokehold, Arrachion ended up with a broken neck. His opponent having already conceded, the dead Arrachion was declared the title bout’s winner – perhaps the only time in Olympics history that a corpse was crowned a champion. He thus added a wrinkle to the athletic ideal of “victory or death” by gaining victory and death in winning a championship.
