From N.S. Gill,
Your Guide to Ancient / Classical History.
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The Olympics were such major events in ancient history, that events are dated according to the Olympiad, or period of the games. Otherwise, each of the city states (poleis) had its own dating system, so the Olympic dates acted as a unifying device. The Olympics were just one of the sets of Panhellenic games -- games for the people of all poleis of ancient Greece.

General Information on the Ancient Olympics

• Olympic Games
  A profile of the Olympics including information on the participants, the victors, the sacred truce, and cheating.
• Ancient History of the Olympics
  More details than the profile, this article includes a history, the main sports, the mythological origins, Pindar on the mythological origins, and elements of religion involved in the event.
• Ancient Olympics - The Individual Events of the Ancient Olympic Games
  The races and other events in the Olympics were not fixed at the time of the first Olympic games, but gradually evolved. Here you'll find a description of the big events at the ancient Olympics and the approximate date that they became part of the Olympics.
• Epictetus on the Olympics
  Epictetus describes the training an athlete must undergo to compete in the Olympics.
• Theodosius
  The Roman emperor Theodosius I or Theodosius the Great put an end to the ancient Olympics as part of his acts to make Catholicism the dominant religion.
• Select Bibliography

Origins of the Olympics

• King Oenomaus of Pisa in Elis
  Oenomaus was the son of Ares and the Pleiad Sterope. He was the king of Pisa in Elis, and the father of the very desirable Hippodamia. Commemorating the death of Oenomaus, which accompanied the successful wooing of his daughter, Olympic games were established. They were also designed in honor of Zeus, either by Pelops or Hercules.
• Olympics - Games, Ritual and Warfare
  It's a curious aspect of sports that even when they are part of a celebration of global peace, like the Olympics, they are nationalistic, competitive, violent, and potentially deadly. Substitute panhellenic for global and the same could be said about the ancient Olympics.

Symbolic and Important Features of the Games

• Hellanodikai
  Officials at the Olympic events.
• What's Love Got To Do With It?
  Imprinted on Olympic medals is a sprig of laurel because, since antiquity, laurel has been associated with victory. It began, though, not with the Olympics, but with another Panhellenic festival, the Pythian Games. Sacred to Apollo, the Pythian Games were almost as important to the Greeks as the Olympics. Lean more about the Olympics and the other Panhellenic games.
• Zeus at Olympia
  The Athenian sculptor Pheidias (Phidias) is considered the greatest of the classical sculptors, so in 440 B.C., when it was decided that Zeus should preside via statue at the Olympic games, at Olympia, those responsible for honoring the king of the gods commissioned Pheidias. The ivory and gold-covered statue of Zeus that Pheidias crafted sat in a Doric temple built c. 450 B.C. by the architect Libon.