On June 23, 1894, the International Olympic Committee was created in Paris. The French aristocrat and historian Pierre de Coubertin thus intended to revive the sports competitions of antiquity. The first Olympic Games of the Modern Age were held in Athens in 1896. The competition had been conceived years before, but it was necessary to overcome a series of obstacles. The main mentor of the resurrection of the ancient games was the French historian and aristocrat Pierre de Coubertin. For thinking of a Greek Olympiad-style body strength measurement, he was either mocked or, more often than not, ignored.
For body and spirit
The young baron was a patriot deeply concerned about the plight of his “great nation”. In his view, late 19th-century France was weakened by constant government changes and military defeats. His aim, therefore, was to “pull idle youths out of bars and make them people of character and physically fit.” He wanted a balance between physical training and intellectual training.
To put his ideas into practice, Coubertin created a Committee for the Propagation of Physical Exercises in Education. He sought out sponsors, arguing that France’s future was at stake. For the historian, the ideal scenario to encourage bodybuilding would be a competition in the style of the Olympic Games, which were no longer held 1,500 years ago.
Far from petty nationalisms, people should participate in peaceful competition, as in Ancient Greece. This is where the maxim “the important thing is to compete” comes from, that is, the important thing is that countries that hate each other and races that discriminate against each other accept the same criteria of physical excellence and corporal rivalry.
In 1894, 79 representatives from 13 countries gathered at the Sorbonne University in Paris for an international congress convened by Coubertin. Apparently, the situation of amateur sport would be discussed, but, in fact, the resurrection of the Olympic Games was on the agenda. The baron wanted to win supporters for the idea he had had two years earlier, in the same place.
renaissance in athens
On June 23, 1894, it was decided to hold the Olympic Games again, with Athens as the host for its first edition. At the same congress, the basic principles of the competition were also approved and the International Olympic Committee (IOC) was founded.
Two years later, 295 athletes from 13 nations competed in the Greek capital. It was a mix of amateurs, second-rate sportsmen, and makeshift teams—no women. Initially, the Modern Age Olympic Games were not taken seriously by national sporting bodies. But the following games, in Paris and, above all, in London, in 1908, helped to consolidate the competition.
Misrepresentation of ideals
The power of sport, and especially of the Games, was soon recognized by the Nazis. The 1936 Games in Berlin became an instrument of propaganda. In the following years, they became a means of political pressure. Today, the show retains only tenuous memories of the original Olympic philosophy, of fraternization between peoples.
In 1896, it was thought that wars, conflicts, rivalries and the use of violence would be left out during competition. It was imagined that, during the Olympic Games, understanding, cooperation, mutual knowledge and solidarity would reign.
Mercantilism, however, took over the Olympic Games, which became a multimillion-dollar business. Advertising for sports accessories turns athletes into sandwich men, covered in ads. Marketing shamelessly associates the consumption of certain products with the Games.
Olympism was synonymous with amateurism, a kind of love for sport. However, the professionalism of the competitors became the general rule. The “frauds” against amateurism date back to the times of the Cold War. In the Soviet bloc, athletes were state employees. On the American side, the athlete received a scholarship from any university and was also fully dedicated to the sport.
The idealism and purity that Baron de Coubertin wanted to imprint on competition, in the same spirit of the Greek Olympiad, which, in addition to being competitive, also had a religious significance, died over the years.
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