CSMonitor.com An Olympic score to settle: Who brought the contemporary games back to life? Most real sports lovers are aware that the Olympic Games were resurrected in Athens in 1896 by the energetic young Frenchman Pierre Fredy, better known as the Baron de Coubertin. The first true Olympiads were held in Athens, Greece; Stockholm, Sweden; and London, England.
The modern Olympics are a series of annual international sporting events held in multiple locations around the world. They were created by Baron de Coubertin, who believed that such events would help create peace between nations through sport. The first modern Olympics were held in Paris, France from late February to early March 1894. There were only seven sports available to compete in, three each for men and women. No overall winner was declared at those first Games.
Coubertin is regarded as one of the founders of modern day athletics because of his efforts to get more sports included in the program. He also created several other important organizations that still exist today including the International Olympic Committee (IOC) and Union Cycliste Internationale (UCI).
The modern Olympics have been a very successful event since their inception, attracting thousands of athletes from all over the world to compete in these various sports.
In the 110 years since he formed the International Olympic Committee in Paris, the Parisian nobleman has held the unrivaled title of Olympiad revivalist.
But what many people don't know is that De Coubertin was not the first to dream up the idea of a world championship in athletics. He had learned his lesson well from the failed attempt by French athletes to have a national games held in honor of Napoleon I. As he wrote in his book "The History of Sport": "I believe that it is necessary for every country to hold annual fairs or festivals of some kind, at which time its athletes can compete against one another."
And so the idea of a world championship was not new when Coubertin introduced it at the Paris Olympics. What was new was his commitment and passion for the project, which eventually led him to found the International Olympic Committee (IOC). He worked tirelessly to get countries to join together in order to be able to host an Olympic Games and managed to convince almost all of them to participate on one condition: that France be given the right to host the event each four years.
Coubertin's efforts paid off and the first modern-day Olympic Games were held in Athens in 1896.
An idealistic Frenchman called Pierre de Coubertin resurrected the modern Olympics in the nineteenth century. He'd read about the ancient Greek Olympics and wished to revive them. He felt that the Olympic Games may help to promote global peace and worldwide brotherhood.
The first modern Olympic Games were held in Athens in 1896. They included events from baseball to boxing, swimming, running, jumping, throwing, weight lifting, fencing, and wrestling. The only sport excluded from these early games was association football (then known as "football"). This omission is said to have been due to the fact that France and Germany had both entered teams into the event. If these two countries had both won gold medals, there would have been no room for more than one French team at a time!
Coubertin is regarded as the father of international sports diplomacy. He believed that youth should be taught about war and peace through athletics rather than through arms. He also believed that women should be allowed to participate in certain events even though they were not originally planned by the ancient Greeks. Finally, he wanted to do everything possible to prevent athletes from being paid. These are all good ideas today, which is why they have been adopted by many other people who have followed in Coubertin's footsteps.
In 2001, the International Olympic Committee (IOC) voted unanimously to include women's soccer as an official Olympic sport.
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