Leonidas of Rhodes

Leonidas of Rhodes (Ancient Greek: Polytonic|Λεωνίδας; born 188 BCE) was one of the most famous Olympic runners of antiquity. Competing in the Olympic Games of 164 BCE, he captured the crown in three separate foot races — the "stadion", the "diaulos", and the "hoplitodromos". He repeated this feat in the next three subsequent Olympics, in 160 BCE, in 156 BCE, and finally in 152 BCE at the age of 36. Leonidas's lifetime record of twelve Olympic crowns was unmatched in the ancient world.cite book|title=Encyclopedia of the Modern Olympic Movement|last=Findling|first=John E.|coauthors=Kimberly D. Pelle|publisher=Greenwood Press|date=2004|isbn=0313322783|pages=xxxv|url=http://books.google.com/books?id=QmXi_-Jujj0C&pg=PR35&ots=iWaW07rA1m&sig=Np7UnpXesmdbdAYs-jcWUIrJ1CI]

Leonidas was renowned not only for his unsurpassed number of victories but for his versatility as a runner. His favored races required speed and strength in differing degrees; the "stadion" and the "diaulos", 200-yard and 400-yard races respectively, were best suited to sprinters, while the "hoplitodromos", a "diaulos" performed with bronze armor and shield, required more muscular strength and endurance. Philostratus the Athenian wrote in his "Gymnastikos" that Leonidas's versatility made all previous theories of runners' training and body types obsolete.cite book|author=Philostratus II|title=Gymnastikos|pages=33]

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