The First Modern Olympics

In the 1800s, the Greeks began hosting athletic competitions again, hoping they'd gather the kind of steam that got the Olympics rolling. But the games didn't take off.

It took a real visionary to resuscitate a tradition that had been dead for nearly 1500 years. A French baron named Pierre de Coubertin thought that he could reform the French educational system by emphasizing the type of athleticism that the Greeks conceived of. Coubertin wanted to see his countrymen develop into great scholars and citizens as well as great sportsmen. Nurturing and pushing the body to its limits was just as important to Coubertin as challenging one's mind.

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The first Olympic committee, shown on June 1, 1896. Seated L to R: Baron de Coubertin (France), Demetrius Vikelas (Greece), A. de Boulovsky (Russia). Standing L to R: Dr. W. Gebhardt (Germany), Jiri Guth-Jarkovsky (Czechoslovakia), Francois Kemeny (Hungary) and General Victor Balck (Sweden)

He proposed the idea of holding Olympic Games in France to the Union des Sports Athlétiques in 1892. No one was too keen on the idea, but Coubertin was determined to follow through with his athletic revival. Two years later, on June 16, a committee made up of international delegates embraced his idea when he framed the notion of the Olympic Games as a diplomatic opportunity to mend a fractured world. Coubertin got the support of Belgium, England, Greece, Italy, Russia, Spain, Sweden and the United States -- even his skeptical homeland, France, got on board [source: Scholastic].

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Spiridon Louis, the winner of the marathon in the first Modern Olympic Games.

While Coubertin wanted to host the games in France, the committee thought it proper to pay homage to the founder of the games by holding them in Greece first. So Coubertin compromised: France would host the Olympics at the start of the new century in 1900, but Greece would host the very first Modern Olympic Games in 1896. The precedent of holding the games every four years was re-established, and a new precedent was created: The Olympics would be held in different locations each time they occurred.

The Olympic Games of 1896 consisted of nine events, including cycling, fencing, gymnastics, shooting, swimming, tennis, track and field, weight lifting and wrestling [source: Scholastic]. The most anticipated event was the marathon. A co-organizer of the event, Michel Bréal, devised the idea of paying the ultimate homage to Greece by including a track and field event that covered the famous route of Phidippides, the ancient Greek messenger. Phidippides ran 25 miles to deliver an announcement of an important military victory and tragically died at the end of his arduous trek. The entire committee embraced the idea, and the Greeks were favored to win the event. Fate was at work on the day of the race, and the Greek runner Spiridon Louis won the marathon -- even after stopping halfway through at the town of Pikermi to quaff a glass of wine [source: Lovett]. The marathon race course would be extended to its current length of 26.2 miles when London hosted the games in 1908.

In 1924, the first Winter Olympic Games were held in Chamonix, France. These icy-cold events were added to the four-year rotation of their counterpart summer games.

To learn more about the Olympics and other topics related to sports and exercise follow the links on the next pages.