This note demonstrates that during the archaic period a reduction in the number of events featured at Greek athletic festivals took place and produced the agon gymnikos, which was essentially similar to the program at Olympia. It goes on to ask how this reduction came about and suggests that it was caused by the influential and prestigious Olympic model as well as by the intense peer polity interaction of Greek culture. It ends by briefly hinting at some of the advantages
of the fact that the agon gymnikos was basically the same all over the Greek world.