A crowd of not-so-lowly upstarts in southern and northwestern Greece are jostling to end the supremacy of the country’s highest mountain, according to research made public yesterday.

Nevertheless, Mount Olympus, the mythical home of Greece’s ancient gods and at 2,917 meters the undisputed king of Greek mountains, will not be overtaken by the likes of Psiloritis in Crete for some time — about 10 million years.

According to Thessaloniki University Professor of Tectonic Geology Dimosthenis Moudrakis, the geological metabolism of Mt Olympus is slowing rapidly, while at the same time mountains such as Psiloritis (2,456) and the White Mountains (2,454) in Crete, Taygetos (2,404) and Panachaikon (1,924) in the Peloponnese and Smolikas (2,637) in Epirus, are growing lustily. This translates into an annual growth of some 1.5 centimeters, fueled by the rising of areas of Crete and western Greece that border on tectonic plates that are being pushed up. Moudrakis said Olympus started as a fast developer, but that its growth rate now lags behind the competition.