Going for the gold

Because many are watching the Winter Olympics in Vancouver right now, I thought this would be a good opportunity to mention that the idea for the modern Olympic games came from a Frenchman.  There is also a Swiss connection.  Please bear with me.

The Frenchman's name was Pierre Frédy, Baron de Coubertin, although he is more often known simply as Pierre de Coubertin.  He was born into an aristocratic French family of the 19th century.  As an aristocrat, he had leisure to choose life as an intellectual, writing about a variety of topics including education, literature, history and sociology.  His favorite topic was education, specifically, the role of organized sports in helping to get mind and body into equilibrium.   As a classicist who romanticized ancient Greece, he looked to Athenian ideals such as the gymnasium,  a training facility that simultaneously encouraged physical and intellectual development.  Gymnasium, by the way, comes from the Greek "gymnos," meaning "naked."  Early Greek athletes, all of whom were male, competed in the nude.  In addition to encouraging aesthetic appreciation for the male body(!), this early practice effectively ensured that no females could inadvertently participate in the competitions.  The non-participation of females is just one of the ancient traditions that, thankfully, did not continue.

De Coubertin's admiration of Greek curricula was hardly unique.  Other individuals, notably in Great Britain, had created athletic contests in their own countries.  Dr. William Penny Brookes, for one, had sought a revival of the games under the auspices of the Greek government.  But it was de Coubertin who conceived the idea to revive the ancient Olympic games as an international competition and devoted several years to organizing towards that revival.  He ultimately founded the International Olympic Committee (IOC) on 23 June 1894.  The IOC organizes the Olympic games, held every four years.  Those who are of my generation will remember that it is comparatively recent, only since 1992, that the Summer and Winter games have been held in different years, that is, apart from when the games were originally revived after a hiatus of some 1500 years.

The first modern Summer Olympic games were held in 1896, fittingly in Athens, Greece.  The first Winter Olympic games were held in Chamonix, France in 1900.   De Coubertin, who was the second President of the IOC, remained its Honorary President until 1937, when he died in Geneva, Switzerland.  He was buried in Lausanne, the seat of the IOC.

In 1993, the International Olympic Museum was created in Lausanne.  It is the largest archive of Olympic games in the world and remains a prime tourist draw, not too far away from where I live now.   The official website for the museum can be found here.