Brilliant idea of Baron de Coubertin
The idea of reviving the Olympic Games belongs to the Frenchman Baron Pierre de Coubertin (1863-1937). In his youth he was struck by the odes of the Hellenic poet Pindar dedicated to the winners of the Olympic Games. He took up sport and became a fine horseman, fencer, rower and boxer, and then an active promoter of sport. In 1892 de Coubertin addressed athletes around the world with a proposal to revive the Olympic Games. Although the idea seemed naive to many, already in June 1894 at the international athletic congress in Paris it was decided to establish the International Olympic Committee (IOC) and begin preparations for the Games. The venue, on the proposal of the famous Greek writer D. Vikelas, who became chairman of the Greek committee, was Hellas.
In Greece itself, opponents and supporters of this idea immediately appeared. Thus, Prime Minister Ch. Trikoupis believed that the financial situation of a bankrupt country did not even allow thinking about such an expensive sports festival. The entire royal family headed by George I held the opposite opinion. The Greek diaspora gave huge sums of money for the restoration and construction of monumental structures. George Averoff, a grain magnate, provided a colossal sum of one million drachmas for the reconstruction of the ancient Stadium in Athens, others for the construction of a velodrome in Faliro, and so on. The driving force behind all the preparations for the Games was the former mayor of the capital, secretary of the Greek Olympic Committee, T. Philemon. These people did everything to ensure the celebration had a wide international scope.
Despite the very active preparations in Greece, doubts about success still remained. Even in the spring of 1896, the Panathenaic Stadium, white marble in the design, was not completely ready: some parts of it were hastily built from wood; the Games programs were drawn up in the very last days.
But the Greeks unanimously prepared for the festival. Their patriotism during these days was sometimes expressed in extremely original ways. For example, when it became clear that the Games would attract a huge number of foreigners to Athens, pickpockets held a meeting and, as one, swore to show hospitality during the Games. And indeed they kept their word, giving the police a vacation. Foreigners later admired the goodwill, tact and decency of all layers of Greek society.
In the spring of 1896, the modern Olympiad was a pleasant informal gathering of sincere sports lovers from 14 nations. It was particularly emphasized that the participants of the Games were amateur athletes, not professionals, in which the organizers of the first Games saw an example for youth throughout the world, a step towards the physical education of the young generation. In the vast majority they were people of 'good society'. Athleticism for them was not a trade but a favorite pursuit, to which they devoted their leisure, often refusing many amusements and leading a modest and measured lifestyle.
National peculiarities of athleticism of those years were also noticeable. Especially prominent were the Americans, representing sports associations of universities of the northern states, who distinguished themselves in running, jumping, throwing weights; all fit, young and lean; stocky Germans who performed general and individual exercises on German apparatus, as well as special intricate abdominal exercises, accompanied by songs and picturesque athletic groups. The Germans excelled in running, jumping, discus throwing, and wrestling. Elegant and fast Englishmen showed themselves first in the largest number of sports, which was especially developed in Great Britain. Austrians and Hungarians surpassed everyone in swimming.
The French were strong in fencing and bicycle racing and conquered the public with their nobility. So, during the 50 km cycling race on the arena, by the end only the Frenchman Flamang and the Greek youth Kolettis remained. At the height of the struggle, something happened to the Greek's bicycle. Then Flamang, with the exclamation Vive la Grece! gave his opponent time to fix the problem. At the end of the race, which Flamang won, the delighted audience carried both participants out of the velodrome in their arms.
The victory of the Greek runner in the most difficult competition - the marathon race of 42 km along a very rough and inconvenient road - was triumphant. 18 athletes took part in the competition, 13 of them Greeks. The approach of the participants to the Stadium was announced by a mounted officer, who left the runners 9 km from Athens, and then a cannon shot announced that the runner was already at the city limits... and that he was Greek! The audience met the last meters of the marathon distance with unimaginable rejoicing, and the king embraced the winner. The 24-year-old peasant Louis, a hired vineyard worker in the village of Amaroussia, not far from Athens, became a national hero overnight. Dressed in national costume (fustanella), he became the object of attention of all Hellenes. Interestingly, in literature he is called either the shepherd Spyros Lou (Louis), or the letter carrier, or the peasant-owner, which he perhaps became later.
The brilliant success in implementing the then still unpopular idea of the Olympic Games gave a new impulse to the growth of Greek national pride and patriotic upsurge: the uprising against Turkish rule on Crete, which had flared up the previous spring, flared up with unprecedented force. During the Olympic Games, the Sultan appointed a Christian governor to Crete, and in August supported further concessions to the non-Muslim population, alleviating its situation.
"Oh sport! You are peace!"
The closing ceremony of the first Olympic Games in 1896 was extremely solemn. All speakers swore to support the idea of the Olympics. After numerous speeches, a procession of winners took place around the arena, and spectators could say goodbye to the heroes. In conclusion, the Greek king embraced the heir to the throne, Prince Constantine, congratulating him on his success. The author of the brilliant idea of reviving the Olympic Games, present here as well — 33-year-old Frenchman Pierre de Coubertin — seemed to be forgotten, which even the local press later noted. But history put everything in its place, and from early childhood we are familiar with the name of Pierre de Coubertin — a man who at first was almost considered insane. The Olympic flame continues to burn in the 21st century! And every four years the words sound: "O sport! You are peace!" — from the "Ode to Sport," written by Coubertin himself.
The Greeks hoped that after such a success of the Olympics, the IOC would change its original decision on the mobile nature of the international games. At the closing ceremony of the Games, this idea was voiced by King George I himself. Later, Greece independently decided to hold the anniversary Olympic Games in Athens in 1906. They lasted 11 days from April 9 to 19 at the finally completed Stadium — the Marble Stadium. "This kind of international congress of sport," wrote the Russian envoy in Athens, Y. Shcherbachev, to the Russian Minister of Foreign Affairs, Count V. N. Lamzdorf, on March 26, 1906, "established on the initiative of the Greeks, flatters their national vanity, transports them to those distant times when the Hellenes spread enlightenment throughout the world. Moreover, modern Greeks are lovers of all kinds of competitions: in some categories of the Games they already count their victories."
Finally, no matter how disinterested the very idea of the Olympic Games is, it, like any enterprise, promised the population direct material benefit from the arrival of a significant number of tourists, visits to Piraeus by foreign squadrons, and so on. However, despite the efforts of the Greeks, the 1906 Olympics did not go down in the history of the Olympic movement.