17. The Victorious Olympic Games Corpse
When Arrhichion of Phigalia found himself locked in a chokehold in the 564 BC Olympic Games’ pankration title bout, things seemed hopeless. However, the two-time returning champion was a wily competitor, and he had a few tricks up his sleeve. He feigned a loss of consciousness, which got his opponent to relax a bit. When his opponent eased off, the wily title holder snapped back into action, and with a convulsive heave, he shook and threw off his opponent, and snapped his ankle in the process.
The sudden and excruciating pain of the snapped ankle made Arrhichion’s opponent do the ancient Greeks’ equivalent of a tap out, and he made the sign of submission to the referees. However, when he threw off his opponent while the latter still had him in a powerful chokehold, Arrhichion ended up with a broken neck. Since his opponent had already tapped out, the dead Arrhichion was declared the title bout’s winner. It was perhaps the only time in the history of the Olympic Games that a corpse was crowned as an Olympic victor. The three-times pankration champion thus added a wrinkle to the athletic ideal of “victory or death” by gaining victory and death.
