How the modern Olympics came to be | Explained News

The inaugural Olympic Games kicked off in Athens, Greece on April 6, 1896, paving the way for modern sports competition as we know it. Most people recognise French baron Pierre de Coubertin as the “father of the modern Olympics” but the idea well predates him, going all the way back to 1830s Greece.

Panagiotis Soutsos’ idea to make Greece great again

Modern Greece emerged from the throes of revolution which lasted from 1821 to 1829. After centuries of foreign rule — most recently, four centuries of Ottoman control — the land once considered to be the zenith of human civilisation, lagged behind much of Europe both economically and culturally.

For Greek intellectuals of the time, independence was not only a moment to celebrate the birth of a new Greek nation, but a time for national revival. Poet Panagiotis Soutsos (1806-1868) was among the many who harkened Greece’s glorious ancient past to invoke a sense of national pride and nostalgia.

He wrote a number of poems reflecting this sentiment in the early 1830s including the famous “Dialogues of the Dead” in 1833. The poem is written from the perspective of the ghost of Greek philosopher Plato gazing at modern Greece from the underworld. “Where are all your theatres and marble statues? / Where are your Olympic Games?” says Plato in the poem.

Festive offer

Two years later, Soutsos wrote a letter to the Greek Minister of the Interior, proposing that March 25, the anniversary of the outbreak of the Greek War of Independence, should be declared a national holiday, marked by festivities including a revived version of the ancient Olympics. It was not until 1856 that someone else backed this idea.

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Evangelos Zappas funds the ‘first’ Olympic Games

By the 1850s, Evangelos Zappas, a veteran of the Greek War of Independence, was one of the richest men in Eastern Europe. He became obsessed with Soutsos’ idea of reviving the Olympics, so much so that in 1856, Zappas proposed to the Greek government to hold the Games which he would fund from his own pocket.

After three years of lobbying, Zappas’ Olympics were held in 1859 in a city square in Athens. A number of competitions were organised, including running, discus, javelin throwing, wrestling, jumping, and pole climbing — all events which took place in ancient Greece. Winners received cash prizes.

Zappas left his fortune to fund future Olympiads. Thus, the games were held again in 1870, 1875, and 1888, with the last edition taking place in the newly-built Panathenaic Stadium (again, funded by Zappas).

William Penny Brookes and the English Olympics

Greece was not the only place where attempts were on to revive the ancient Olympics.

W P Brookes, a doctor in a small English village called Wenlock, was an ardent admirer of ancient Greece. After reading about Zappas’ upcoming Olympics in Athens, in 1859, Brookes decided to organise his own games, or the “Annual Wenlock Olympic Games”. In 1866, Brookes would organise the first “National Olympic Games” in London, drawing athletes and spectators from all of Britain.

But not everyone was happy with Brookes’ new (and successful) venture. The British aristocracy, for instance, was vehemently against the idea of opern participation. The Amateur Athletic Club, run by British aristocrats, pushed to restrict participation only to “gentlemen”.

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This move towards amateurism would also be copied in Greece — and consequently, the quality of these early Olympics would dip substantially, as would the interest in them.

Internationalising the Olympics

In 1880, in a bid to re-energise the Olympics, Brookes proposed the idea of an international Olympic competition open to all. Thus far, both in Britain and Greece, the Olympics had been restricted to nationals. In his letter proposing the idea, Brookes wrote that he hoped to see athletes of various nations “contending in a generous rivalry with athletes of other nations in the time-consecrated stadium at Athens”.

It is this idea that Pierre de Coubertin eventually claimed as his own in 1892, after meeting Brookes and witnessing the Wenlock games in 1890. In 1894, he organised the “Congress for the Revival of the Olympic Games” in Paris. This conference, which saw the participation of delegates from across Europe, lasted several days, culminating with the proposal to hold the very first International Olympic Games in Athens in 1896.

The Athens Olympics, held under the aegis of the newly founded International Olympic Committee, would be a rousing success. Held in the Panathenaic stadium, it was the first international sports meet of its scale to ever be organised. The Games attracted athletes from 14 nations, with the largest delegations coming from Greece, Germany, France and Great Britain.

This is an updated version of an explainer published last year.



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