The first modern Olympic Games took place in Athens on Easter Sunday, 5 April 1896. There were 311 participants (of whom 230 were Greeks) representing 13 countries. The events held featured athletics, gymnastics, swimming, cycling, fencing, shooting, tennis, weightlifting and wrestling, and the Marathon race was introduced as an Olympic sport. Overall, the Athens Games were deemed a success and were attended by some 80,000 spectators, including King George and his family.
Coubertin and the Olympics
Deeply affected by France’s humiliating defeat in the Franco-Prussian War of 1871 and influenced by British sport education, French nobleman, Pierre de Coubertin, promoted competitive sports as means of achieving moral and intellectual growth. Spurned by French educators, Coubertin expanded his vision to include an international, multi-sport competition to take place in a different region every four years.
Fascination with ancient Greece revived by recent excavations in the ancient Greek site of Olympia and at Troy, earlier attempts towards Olympic revival and the growth of sport activities in Europe and America contributed to the wholehearted endorsement of Coubertin’s vision by the Olympic Congress in 1894. The choice of Greece as the country to host the Olympics was obvious due to the classical heritage. But soon the Games were embroiled in political controversy on different levels.
Olympic Games and Politics
Opposition to the Olympic Games came from different quarters:
- Coubertin’s plan was initially met with incomprehension. He did not wish to revive the ancient Greek Games but organize modern competitive athletics on an international level, a novel concept for the time. Coubertin complained in his memoirs that no one understood what he was talking about.
- Prime Minister Trikoupis was against the Games as Greece had gone bankrupt and could ill afford to shoulder the financial burden of such an undertaking. The Greek Olympic Affairs Committee was also against the Olympic Games taking place in Athens.
- The British, the Germans and the French were not too eager to take part in the Olympic Games for reasons pertaining to indifference, differing sport ideals, political animosities and rivalries.
Although the Athens Games were embroiled in politics, the pro-Olympic forces gained momentum in the end and the first modern Olympics went ahead. Money was raised by wealthy Diaspora Greeks and also from the sale of admission tickets, medals and coins. The Greek royal family and especially Crown Prince Constantine were strong supporters of the Athens Games and pushed for Greece becoming the stable home of the Olympic Games.
Success of the Athens 1896 Olympics
Few top athletes competed in the first modern Olympics, thus there were no world records set and compared with modern-day standards, there were a lot of irregularities due to inexperience. However, the Olympic Games of 1896 were deemed a success. In the words of Erich Senn, Coubertin succeeded in establishing a modern international, quadrennial multisport competition robed in the garb of Classical Greece.
Sources
Michael Llewellyn Smith, Olympics in Athens 1896: The Invention of the Modern Olympic Games, Profile Books 2004
Alfred Erich Senn, Power, Politics and the Olympic Games, Human Kinetics Europe Ltd, 1999.
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