REVIVAL OF THE OLYMPICS
The architect of the modern Olympics was Baron Pierre de Coubertin, born in Paris on New Year's Day, 1863. As a young man he was intensely interested in literature and in education and sociology. Family tradition pointed to an army career or possibly politics, but at the age of 24 Coubertin decided that his future lay in education. At the same time he had the idea of reviving the Olympic Games, and he propounded his desire for a new era in international sport when on November 25, 1892, at a meeting of the Union des Sports Athlétiques in Paris, he said:

Let us export our oarsmen, our runners, our fencers into other lands. That is the true Free Trade of the future; and the day it is introduced into Europe the cause of Peace will have received a new and strong ally. It inspires me to touch upon another step I now propose and in it I shall ask that the help you have given me hitherto you will extend again, so that together we may attempt to realise, upon a basis suitable to the conditions of our modern life, the splendid and beneficent task of reviving the Olympic Games.

The speech did not produce any appreciable activity, but Coubertin was not fainthearted. At a conference on international sport in Paris in June 1894 at which Coubertin raised the possibility of the revival of the Olympic Games, there were 79 delegates representing 49 organizations from nine countries. Coubertin himself wrote that except for his co-workers Dimítrios Vikélas of Greece, who was to be the first president of the International Olympic Committee, and Professor William M. Sloane of the U.S. from the College of New Jersey (later Princeton University), no one had real interest in the revival of the Games. Nevertheless, and to quote Coubertin again, "a unanimous vote in favour of revival was rendered at the end of the Congress chiefly to please me."

It was at first agreed that the Games should be held in Paris in 1900. Six years seemed a long time to wait, however, and it was decided to change the venue--what better site than Athens, the capital of Greece--and the date, to April 1896. A great deal of indifference, if not opposition, had to be overcome, including a refusal by Athens to stage the Games at all. But Coubertin and his newly elected International Olympic Committee of 14 members won through, and the Games were opened by the King of Greece in the first week of April 1896.



Introduction * Early History * Organization of the Modern Olympics