Very Old School

OLYMPIA, Greece —  So this is home.

The stands are grass, two sloping sideline hills, 2,780 years old and not a bad seat in the house.

The field is 210 yards of sand, still perfectly straight and square, a lasting tribute to a groundskeeper named Hercules.

The entryway is a stone corridor that leads under a stone arch, as strong and imposing as when Milo of Kroton swaggered through.

So this is home, and you wonder, “Why did it take us so long to come back? And where exactly did we lose our way?”

The birthplace of sport again became the center of sport Wednesday when the Olympics traveled four hours and nearly three millenniums from Athens to hold its shotput competition here.

“It’s so wonderful here, it’s hard to put into words,” said Cleopatra Borel of Trinidad and Tobago, quietly, yet perfectly audibly amid the wooded whispers. “It’s surreal.”

It was the ultimate throwback jersey, except that these competitors actually wore jerseys, unlike their naked predecessors.

“You guys wouldn’t want to see me ... “ said U.S. athlete John Godina.

Everything else fit. Zeus would have been proud. So too should the Greeks, who managed to pour a few brief drops of purity into a sports world swimming in grease.

Luxury boxes and high-priced tickets? Not here. As in the ancient Games, admission was free and there were no seats, 15,000 fans sprawling on the sides of the two hills.

Blaring music during breaks in the action? Only from cicadas that filled the thick groves of pines.

There were no concession stands and little shade from the 90-degree heat, for either the fans or athletes, so it’s not surprising they acted as one.

There was no booing. There were no chants for any individual country. It was exactly what the ancients hoped for by making competitors disrobe. There was applause for achievement, not affiliation.

Said Greek Canadian visitor Sofia Vriniotis: “I don’t care about watching guys throwing things, I just want to be here, cheering for everything.”

Said her father, Nick: “Yes, but look around -- no facilities or food. It’s not exactly paradise.”

Replied Sofia: “Don’t mind him. The heat is just getting to him.”

The heat didn’t bother the athletes, but the legends did.

Because women were not allowed to participate in the ancient Olympics, when Kristin Heaston of the U.S. put her first shot in the morning, she was the first female to compete here in 2,780 years.

She didn’t make it past the first round.

“I should have thought more about what I was doing today instead of thinking what I was doing in history,” Heaston said.

Then there was Janus Robberts of South Africa, who said he spent his pregame warmup thinking of his long-ago predecessors.

“I was sitting on the slopes, watching the same horizon they watched thousands of years ago,” he said.

Then he promptly fouled twice in three attempts and was also eliminated.

“I did a short putt instead of a shotput,” he said.

With the men trying to act like Cratus, they ended up looking more like a Cretan bull in a china shop, with 28 of the 60 attempts in the finals ending in fouls.

This ancient daze extended to some of the fans, particularly Ted Karkazis, an engine builder from Chicago’s South Side who showed up wearing a toga.

A Roman toga.

“I thought more people would be wearing one,” he said. “I guess I’m the only guy.”

The women’s winner, Irina Korzhanenko of Russia, was one of the few who kept her focus, as Borel learned.

“I’m used to coming out of a competition angry,” she said. “This time, I’m not. I’m just happy to be here.”

So, it seemed, was everyone, right down to one last perfect moment. In the event’s final throw in the fading light, Adam Nelson seemingly put the shot far enough for gold medal but was called for a foul.

He immediately and furiously argued with the red-flag waving judge, and a hush descended on the crowd.

Uh-oh. Was 2004 barging in on 776 BC? Could we not survive one sports event in 2,000 years without a controversy?

Nelson walked over to a TV monitor and checked out the instant replay -- just hush, we cannot survive without those things, OK? -- and returned with a verdict.

He told the judges he was sorry.

“They said I fouled. I didn’t think I did, but they were right,” he said.

So this is home.

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Bill Plaschke can be reached at bill.plaschke@latimes.com. To read previous columns by Plaschke, go to latimes.com/plaschke.