The Revival of the Ancient Olympics

From Ancient to Modern

• 776 B.C. First Ancient Olympic Games

• 393 A.D. Last Ancient Olympic Games

• 1827 Greek Independence from the Ottoman Empire

• 1896 First Modern Olympic Games (in Athens)

Call for Revival of the Olympics Games

in a poem by Alexandros Soutsos

in 1833

in a newspaper called Helios

Soutsos’ PoemIf our shadow could fly to your earth it would daringly shout to the Ministers of the Throne:

Leave your petty politics and vain quarrels.Recall the past splendour of Greece.Tell me, where are your ancient centuries?Where are your Olympic Games?Where your Panathenaic Games? Your majestic celebrations and great theatres? Where are your sculptures and busts, where are your altars and temples?Every city, every wood and every temple was filled before with rows of silent marble statues. Foreign nations decorated your altars with offerings, gold jars from Gygas. Kraters, silver plates and precious stones from Croesus. When the glorious Olympic festival opened, large crowds gathered to watch the games where athletes and kings came to compete.Ieron and Gelon and Philip and others before forty thousand bedazzled Greeks. Herodotus presented in his elegant history their recent triumphs. Thucydides listened to the beautiful harmony of his prose and prepared to meet him in competition as a worthy rival.

(G. Dolianitis, Vikelas, First I.O.C. President, International Olympic Academy, [S.Y.])

Evangelis Zappas 1800-1865

Inspired by Soutsos’ poem

Finances games of 1859

Left fortune for future games

The Zappian Games

• 1859 / 1870 / 1875 / 1889

• Track and running events

• Cash prizes

• Trend from worker/athletes in 1859 to university athletes in 1889

• Ceremonies, uses of medals and organization paved way for IOC

Zappian Games of 1859

• Held in Athens in a public square

• Large crowds• Participants from

spectators• Mixed competition of

agricultural, industrial and athletic events

• Criticized by press for poor organization

Zappian Games of 1870

Use of ancient Panathenaic Stadium

Zappian Games of 1870• Program and rules announced in advance

• Athletes chosen in advance, mostly Greek

• 30000 spectators

• Monetary and symbolic prizes

• Extremely successful

Giorgos Akestoridis, winner at the event of rope climbing in the 2nd Zappian Olympic Games.

Zappian Games of 1875

• Organized by Ioannis Phokianos, director of Public Gymnasium

• Strongly gymnastic

• Heavily academic

• General public banned from competition

Medal from the third Zappian Olympic Games in 1875 with the bust of king George I.

Zappian Games of 1889

• Organized by Phokianos again

• Heavily gymnastic

• Held in Gymnasium, not stadium

The catalogue of exhibitors at the 4th Zappian Olympic Games.

International Olympic Committee (IOC)

The first Session of the International Olympic Committee (IOC) was held in Paris on 18-23 June 1894. It was during the first Session that the city of Athens was selected for the Games of the I Olympiad.

The first Olympic Committee meets in 1896: Baron de Coubertin is the second from left.

1896—First Modern Olympics

The cover of the book by Charles Beck about the 1896 Olympic Games became the first Olympic poster.Hellenic Olympic Committee.

The first Session of the International Olympic Committee (IOC) was held in Paris on 18-23 June 1894. It was during the first Session that the city of Athens was selected for the Games of the I Olympiad.

Scenes from Athens 1896

100 metre race

Some Stats 1896• All 295 athletes were male. • The American Thomas Burke

won the 100-meter dash in 12.0 seconds.

• 10-year old Dimitrios Loundras of Greece finished third in the parallel-bars competition, becoming the youngest athlete to finish in top three.

• Carl Schuhmann of Germany was one of the most versatile athletes. He won the super heavyweight Greco-Roman wrestling and the long horse vault. He also competed in long jump, triple jump and shot put.

Spyros Louis, The first Marathon winnerLast torch bearer at 1936 Olympics

The U.S. Team 1896

Several members of America's first Olympic team. Standing: T.E. Burke, Thomas P. Curtis, Ellery H. Clark. Seated: W.W. Hoyt, Sumner Paine, Trainer John Graham, John B. Paine, Arthur Blake.

1st Modern Olympic Champion

• James Connolly (USA-athletics) won the triple jump on 6 April 1896, and thus became the first Olympic champion since the Ancient Games. He also finished second in the high jump and third in the long jump. He left Harvard University to travel to Athens on a cargo ship and then by train to compete.

Modern Olympic Movement• MISSIONS

What is the goal of the Olympic Movement? According to the Olympic Charter, established by Pierre de Coubertin, the goal of the Olympic Movement is to contribute to building a peaceful and better world by educating youth through sport practised without discrimination of any kind and in the Olympic spirit, which requires mutual understanding with a spirit of friendship, solidarity and fair play.

Essential missions of the Olympic Movement:

Choice of the host city

Organisation of the Olympic Games

Equality in sport

Promotion of women in sport

Protection of athletes

Human development assistance

Protection of the environment

The Olympic Truce

Baron de Coubertin1863-1937

The man most responsible for the revival of the modern Olympic Games was a French nobleman, Pierre de Fredi, known as Baron de Coubertin.

The Modern Olympic Ideal"The idea of the revival of Olympic Games was not a passing fancy: it was the logical culmination of a great movement. The 19th century saw the taste for physical exercises revive everywhere ... At the same time the great inventions, the railways and the telegraph have abridged distances and mankind has come to live a new existence; the peoples have intermingled, they have learned to know each other better and immediately they started to compare themselves. What one achieved the other immediately wished also to endeavor: universal exhibitions brought together to one locality of the globe the products of the most distant lands; Literary or scientific congresses have brought together, into contact, the various intellectual forces. How then should the athletes not seek to meet, since rivalry is the basis of athletics, and in reality the very reason of its existence?" (Baron Pierre de Coubertin, 1896)