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OPLITODROMIA at NEMEA ancient stadium

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The hoplitodromos (or hoplitodromia) was an ancient foot race, part of
the Olympic Games and the other Panhellenic Games. It was the last
foot race to be added to the Olympics, first appearing at the 65th
Olympics in 520 BC, and was traditionally the last foot race to be
held.[1]



Unlike the other races, which were generally run in the nude, the
hoplitodromos required competitors to run wearing the helmet and
greaves of the hoplite infantryman from which the race took its name.
Runners also carried the aspis, the hoplites' bronze-covered wood
shield, bringing the total encumbrance to at least 50 pounds. As the
hoplitodromos was one of the shorter foot races, the heavy armor and
shield was less a test of endurance than one of sheer muscular
strength.

After 450 BC, the use of greaves was abandoned; however, the weight of
the shield and helmet remained substantial.[2]



At Olympia and Athens, the hoplitodromos track, like that of the
diaulos, was a single lap of the stadium (or two stades). Since the
track made a hairpin turn at the end of the stadium, there was a
turning post called a kampter at each end of the track to assist the
sprinters in negotiating the tight turn — a task complicated by the
shield carried in the runner's off hand.



At Nemea the distance was doubled to four stades, and at Plataia in
Boeotia the race was 15 stades in total.[1]



The hoplitodromos, with its military accoutrements, was as much a
military training exercise as an athletic contest. Encounters with
squads of expert Persian archers, first occurring shortly before the
hoplitodromos was introduced in 520 BC, must have suggested the need
for training the Greek armored infantry in fast "rushing" maneuvers
during combat. Additionally, the original 400-meter length of the
hoplitodromos coincides well with the effective area of the Persian
archers' zone of fire, suggesting an explicit military purpose for
this type of training.[3][4]