affable Greek who eventually became the first president of the IOC. Thanks to the Baron’s energy, stamina, talent, and panache, the Games were on.
Party Like It’s 1896
In 1894, Coubertin gathered a throng of sports aficionados for an international congress in Paris to discuss the vexing question of amateurism in athletics. In his initial appeal, he did not explicitly mention his plan to revive the Olympic Games, for fear of alienating potential participants.79 But by the time he issued a preliminary agenda, he tacked on as the eighth and final item “the possibility of restoring the Olympic Games … under what circumstances could they be restored?”80 By the time the actual congress rolled around, this single bullet point was expanded into three agenda items pertaining to the Games’ “advantages from the athletic, moral and international points of view,” the selection of specific sports for inclusion at the Games, and the “nomination of an International Committee responsible for preparing their re-establishment.”81
Some 2,000 witnesses to the proceedings packed the Sorbonne’s amphitheater, including seventy-nine official delegates from forty-nine athletic societies based in twelve countries. Luminaries in attendance included representatives of the Paris Polo Club, the French Equestrian Society, and the Society for the Encouragement of Fencing. Numerous royals accepted the invitation: the king of Belgium, the prince of Wales, Grand Duke Vladimir of Russia, Sweden’s royal prince, the crown prince of Greece, and more.82 Early on, the congress was divided into two committees, one that would examine amateurism, and the other, Olympism.83 Journalists from prominent newspapers—Le Figaro, The Times of London, the New York Times, the National-Zeitung—were on hand to cover the action.84 The stage was set.
The Baron wasn’t about to squander the opportunity. He packed the inner circle with dignitaries sympathetic to his Olympic dream. He handpicked an “International Committee for the Olympic Games”—the first iteration of the IOC—that was swiftly ratified by the congress. From the beginning, the IOC carried the whiff of aristocracy, featuring two counts, a lord, and of course the Baron. Professors, generals, and other social and political elites of the day filled out the IOC’s roster, even though a number of them hadn’t even attended the Paris congress. Coubertin envisioned the original IOC as “three concentric circles.” One comprised “a small nucleus of active and convinced members.” The second circle was “a nursery of members of good will who were capable of being educated.” Lastly, there was “a façade of more or less useful men whose presence satisfied national pretensions while giving some prestige to the group.”85 To charges that the group was elitist and non-democratic, Coubertin replied: “We are not elected. We are self-recruiting, and our terms of office are unlimited. Is there anything else that could irritate the public more?” Was he troubled by such allegations? “We are not in the least concerned about it,” he assured a gathering in London in 1908.86
Coubertin’s goal was to arrange for the inaugural Olympic Games to take place in 1900 in Paris. But the delegates at the Sorbonne decided unanimously to hold the first modern Olympics in Athens only two years after the congress, in 1896.87 With the Greeks slated to host, Demetrios Vikelas was chosen as IOC president, while Coubertin assumed the post of general secretary.
Vikelas was a University of London–trained author who married a wealthy Greek heiress and enjoyed connections in high places. With only two years to prepare for the first modern Olympics, he led a mad scramble to raise funds to stage the event. But his zeal was tempered by Greek prime minister Charilaos Tricoupis, who didn’t believe in anteing up the government’s scarce funds for the effort (Coubertin later claimed that Tricoupis “did not believe in the success of the Games”).88 In stark contrast to the Olympics of today, the 1896 Games would have to be financed outside the fiscal system of the national government. Fortunately for the organizers, King George and Crown Prince Constantine of Greece showed considerable enthusiasm for rallying private donors. While the Baron stayed behind in Paris, occupying himself with tasks such as securing sculptor Jules Chaplain to design the Olympic medals, Vikelas scurried around Athens making arrangements, brokering deals, and promising an influx of tourists. He reached out to the foreign press through a stream of telegrams hyping the Games.89
To quell the panic over the dearth of funds, Coubertin publicly lowballed the cost of the Olympics, inaugurating a trend that still thrives today. He assured everyone that the Games could be staged for a mere 200,000 drachmas—a figure that the Olympic historian David Young dubbed “ridiculously low,” given that the stadium refurbishment alone cost three times that much.90 Were it not for George Averoff, a wealthy Greek businessman who agreed to finance the stadium building in Athens, the Games might not have happened. (For his munificence Averoff was rewarded with a sizable statue in his likeness that graced the stadium entrance.) The 1896 Olympics also enjoyed the generous support of trade unions and working people across Athens—which was ironic since they would be ineligible to participate in the Games, thanks to the “mechanics clause.”91 Because of the groundswell of local support, the Games were on.
The opening ceremony of 1896 Olympics was said to be the largest assemblage of people for peaceful purposes since antiquity, with 50,000 packed into the stadium and another 20,000 lounging on the hillside above. Young describes the Games as “the grandest sporting event to that point in the history of earth.”92 These first modern Olympics featured forty-three events in nine sports, with thirteen countries sending 311 participants. Nearly three of every four competitors hailed from Greece.93 The United States sent the largest contingent of foreign athletes, most of them college students from the Eastern seaboard. They fared brilliantly, scooping up a hefty satchel of medals, and punctuated their efforts with rah-rah college-boy cheers that left the assembled Greeks gobsmacked. Blending ignorance with toxic stereotyping, one Athens newspaper explained the Americans’ success by claiming they “joined the inherited athletic training of the Anglo-Saxon to the wild impetuosity of the redskin.”94 After competing, Olympic athletes mingled with everyday citizens, making them accessible in ways unthinkable today.95
Looking back on the 1896 Olympics, scholars have come to diverse conclusions, from deeming them “a huge success”96 to the assessment that the Games “are best remembered for the fact that they took place.”97 The Olympics earned mixed reviews in the US press, despite the fact that American athletes shined. One observer deemed the opening of the Games in Athens to be “a delight to the eye and an impressive appeal to the imagination.” Pointing to the intrinsic values of the revived sporting competition, the person wrote that the sport festival “has become a good thing of itself, and with all other worthy influences is making for a balanced culture and perfected manhood.”98 Another commentator complained that the event was hardly international, contending that the IOC “failed to attract foreign competitors [and] also failed to attract foreign spectators.” Despite Vikelas’s rosy predictions, the New York Times reported that thanks to a “preposterous” hike in hotel room costs, many tourists who had planned on visiting Athens “abstained from going … intentionally delaying their visit to Athens till after the termination of the games.”99
But the Greeks were thrilled with the outcome. At the conclusion of the Games, they were keen to host all future Olympics. At a royal banquet for the athletes and distinguished foreign guests, King George offered a bold toast:
Greece, who has been the mother and nurse of the Olympic Games in ancient times and who had undertaken to celebrate them once more today, can now hope, as their success has gone beyond all expectations, that the foreigners, who have honoured her with their presence, will remember Athens as the peaceful meeting place of all nations, as the tranquil and permanent seat of the Olympic Games.100
According to the Games’ official report, the king’s suggestion elicited “an outburst of hurrahs. The enthusiasm was indiscribable [sic].” The idea was ratified by members of the US Olympic team, who wrote
