1896 : First modern
Olympic Games
On April 6, 1896,
the Olympic Games, a long-lost tradition of ancient Greece,
were reborn in Athens 1,500 years after being banned by Roman Emperor
Theodosius I. At the opening of the Athens Games, King Georgios I of
Greece and a crowd of 60,000 spectators welcomed athletes from 13
nations to the international competition.
The first recorded Olympic Games were held at Olympia in the
Greek state of Elis in 776 B.C. but it is generally accepted
that the Olympics were at least 500 years old at that time. The
ancient Olympics, held every four years, occurred during a religious
festival honoring the Greek god Zeus. In the 8th century B.C.
contestants came from a dozen or more Greek cities and by the fifth
century B.C. from 100 cities. Initially, Olympic competition was limited to foot races,
but later a number of other events were added, including wrestling,
boxing, horse and chariot racing and military competitions. The
pentathlon, introduced in 708 B.C. consisted of a foot race, the
long jump, discus and javelin throws and wrestling. With the rise
of Rome, the Olympics declined and in 393 A.D. the Roman Emperor
Theodosius I, a Christian, abolished the Games as part of his
efforts to suppress
paganism in the Roman Empire.
With the Renaissance, Europe began a long fascination with ancient
Greek culture, and in the 18th and 19th centuries some nations
staged informal sporting and folkloric festivals bearing the name
"Olympic Games." However, not until 1892 that a
young French baron, Pierre de Coubertin, seriously proposed reviving
the Olympics as a major international competition that would occur
every four years. At a conference on international sport in Paris in
June 1894, Coubertin raised the idea and the 79 delegates
from nine countries unanimously approved his proposal. The
International Olympic Committee (IOC) was formed, and the first
Games were planned for 1896 in Athens, the capital of Greece.
In Athens, 280 participants from 13 nations competed in 43 events,
covering track-and-field, swimming, gymnastics, cycling, wrestling,
weightlifting, fencing, shooting, and tennis. All the competitors
were men. The track-and-field events
were held at the Panathenaic Stadium, which was originally built in
330 B.C. and restored for the 1896 Games. Americans won nine out of
12 of
these events. The 1896 Olympics also featured the first marathon
competition, which followed the 25-mile route run by a Greek soldier
who brought news of a victory over the Persians from Marathon to
Athens in 490 B.C. In 1924, the marathon was standardized at 26
miles and 385 yards. Appropriately, a Greek, Spyridon Louis, won the
first marathon at the 1896 Athens Games.
Pierre de Coubertin became IOC president in 1896 and guided the
Olympic Games through its early years, when it lacked much
popular support and was overshadowed by world's fairs. In 1924, the
first truly successful Olympic Games were held in Paris, involving
more than 3,000 athletes, including more than 100 women, from 44
nations. The first Winter Olympic Games were also held that year. In
1925, Coubertin retired. The Olympic Games have come to be regarded
as the foremost international sports competition. At the 2000 Summer
Olympics in Sydney more than 10,000 athletes from 200 countries
competed, including nearly 4,000 women. In 2004, the Summer Olympics
returned to Athens, with more than 11,000 athletes competing from
202 countries. In a proud moment for Greeks and an exciting one for
spectators, the shotput competition was held at the site of the
classical Games in Olympia.
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