The Real Story of the Modern Olympics by Ange Kenos

Founders of the Modern Olympics The Real Story of the Modern Olympics

By Ange Kenos Olympic Certified Weightlifting Coach (c)

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Contents

Page 2

Preface

Page 3

Text Panagiotis Sousos

Pages 4 – 5

Evangelos Zappas

pages 5 - 7

Dimitrios Vikelas

Page 8

Georgios Averoff

Pages 9 – 10

References

Pages 11 - 12

Images Soutsos Soutsos’ Poem Ancient Greek Olympics The Stadium Vikelas, and his inspirational words Averoff 1896 Olympics Report

Page 4 Page 5 Page 6 Page 7 Page 8 Page 9 Page 10

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Preface For well over a hundred years, the world has been consistently told that Baron Pierre de Coubertain invented/ founded the Modern Olympics.

Indeed, unless you are a scholar/ researcher of Olympism, you could not believe anything else (1).

But the true story is far more involved (2), far broader and in reality, our Frenchman was only the last in a line of great men whose dedication to the Games resulted in their resurrection, in Athens, in 1896.

This belittles and denies the pioneering thoughts of Panagiotis Soutsos (3), the personal and financial support of Epirotes (4) Evangelos Zappas (5) and George Averoff (6) and the sporting leadership of the very first IOC President, Dimitrios Vikelas (7). Even IOC archives (8) support what they achieved, but unless we stand up, the truth will remain in those archives.

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Panagiotis Soutsos' Idea

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Panagiotis Soutsos was a famous Hellenic poet. His nation had won independence from the oppressive Ottomans in 1821 and Soutsos spent a good deal of his leisurely time wandering amongst the ruins of what the ancient Hellenes (Greeks) had built. In doing so he became somewhat depressed in that 12 years after attaining Liberty, the nation appeared to be in the doldrums.

Being an avid scholar he thought of how Plato might view the young nation and in 1833, the newspaper Helios published his poem, where he referred to the necessity for reviving the Olympic Games. The newspaper was published in Nafplio, the first capital of the new born Hellenic state, in the Peloponnese, and this was the very first occasion at which someone had publicly called for the revival of the Olympic Games (10).

Two years later, having seen little progress, Panagiotis Soutsos wrote to the Hellenic Minister of the Interior, Dr. Ioannis Kolettis MD – a hero of the War of Independence and later Prime Minister of the young nation. He proposed the anniversary of the day of Liberty, 25 March, to be a day of national celebration and include a revival of the Olympic Games.

But while his suggestion re celebrating 25 March was successful he was unsuccessful with his push for the revival of the Olympic Games (11).

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Plato If 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 Hellas. Tell me, where are your ancient centuries?

Where are your Olympic 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. Creators, 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 Hellenes, Herodotus presented in his elegant history their recent triumphs. Thucudides listened to the beautiful harmony of his prose and prepared to meet him in competition as a worthy rival. (12) Influenced by the ideas of that poem, the great philanthropist Evangelos Zappas proposed the revival of the Olympic Games (13). Zappas was born in 1800 in a village at Epirus, Northern Hellas. The same general region as Dr Kolettis. In 1831 he emigrated to Bucharest, where he became one of the most important and wealthiest land-owners in the country.

Influenced by the poem by Panagiotis Soutsos, in which he claimed the need for reviving the Olympic Games, Zappas decided to propagate the idea and to personally finance the effort. After his agreement with the Hellenic Government, the Zappian Olympic Games were founded. Zappas financed the erection of a building for exhibits, as well as the excavation and restoration of the ancient Panathenaic Stadium in Athens.

Zappas died in 1865, leaving his immense fortune for the benefit of the modern Olympics with the purpose to be held every four years "in the manners of our ancestors". De Coubertin was to use this money to achieve what Zappas had begun, although he was to say elsewhere, somewhat nastily, "If the Olympic Games that Modern Greece has not yet been able to revive still survives there today, it is due, not to a Greek, but to Dr W P Brookes". (14) De Coubertain’s respect for the Hellenes was poor.

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According to his will, Zappas’ body was buried in Romania, and his skull at the new Olympic building located in Zappeion, Athens. Visitors can still see the inscription at Zappeion: "Here lies the head". (15) De Coubertin copied the idea and had his heart buried at Mt Olympus with the inscription “Here lies the heart�, just as he copied many other ideas regarding the Olympics.

(16) As the renovation of the ancient Stadium was not yet completed, the Games of 1859 took place in Loudovicos' Square (today's Omonoia Square, in the center of Athens). All the official representatives - the Royal Family, Government MPs, Military and Public Authorities - and many thousands of people attended. (17) As it was one of the first mass gatherings in the country, neither the people nor the police had any previous experience of keeping the necessary order for the event.

The athletic competition had more a game-like than sportive character. As there were no athletes at that time, the Organising Committee accepted the participation of workers, porters, etc., who were attracted by the monetary prizes of the Games.

According to the press of the time, many anecdotes took place during the Games: a policeman who was there keeping the order, left his post and participated in the races. Even a beggar, who pretended to be blind, participated in the races as well!

While the press criticised the Games, the ideal of the athletic competition was generally accepted, and this was the beginning of the whole process of the modern Olympic Games. (18) 6

The Games of 1870's took place in the restored Stadium, funded by the generosity of Zappas (19). They were the very first modern Olympic style Games to be held in a formal stadium, the one built by Zappas’ legacy. (20) At that time the organization was much better. Thirty thousand spectators enjoyed the competitions.

There were nine games: three classic ancient games, four ancient, but not classic games, and two modern. Prizes were both monetary and symbolical.

There was a band playing an Olympic Hymn, specially composed for the occasion. The judges were professors of the University, and a herald announced the winners. The King awarded prizes to winners to the sound of the hymn.

The 1870's Games were an enormous success and the press dedicated triumphal articles both to the organization and to the accomplishment of the Games. More Games were to follow in years to come, all with the legacy of Zappas and his dream of an Olympics every four years.

(21) Demetrios Vikelas was born in 1835 in Syros, and died in 1908 in Athens.

He was a merchant in London, but since literature was his real love, he soon became a well-known writer.

In 1894, he took over the initiative of establishing the modern Olympic Games from Ioannis Phokianos, a university professor who had been deeply involved in supporting the Zappean Games. (22) 7

After becoming a member of the Panhellenic Gymnastic Society in Athens, founded by Phokianos (23), he represented the Society in the International Athletic Congress of 1894 held in Paris. There, he made the first speech strongly suggesting that Athens should be the site of the First International Olympic Games to be held in 1896.

"I claimed Hellas’ rights with regard to the re-establishment of a Hellenic institution. Indeed, as Victor Hugo put it, the whole civilized world has a common grandmother, but we [the Hellenes] have her as our mother. So we are in a way the uncles of the rest of the peoples.

Here is our only advantage, if it is an advantage. Here is the source of my request that the restored Olympic Games be inaugurated on our Hellenic soil". (24) After the acceptance of his proposition, Athens became the site of the first official institutionalised modern Olympic Games and Vikelas became the first president of the new-born International Olympic Committee.

(25) George Averoff, another Hellenic benefactor from Epirus as was Zappas, was a resident of Alexandria. He personally financed the erection of the Athens Polytechnic School, the Military Academy and the High School and the Girls Institution at Alexandria.

When the Committee for the renovation of the Panathenian Stadium asked him to contribute, Averoff stated that he would undertake the renovation of the ancient Panathenian Stadium, at his own expense, but demanding that white marble from Mt Pentelli be used (26).

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(27) He was also active with the Hellenic Olympic Committee and played a role in greeting guests to the Games .

Subsequently, George Averoff was greeted by all Hellenism as the principal establisher of the Olympic Games. In memory of his patriotism, his statue was erected in front of the Stadium on the eve of the beginning of the Games.

So given all of the foregoing, available on the internet and confirmed via IOC Archives, and , many other records how is it that the Hellenic nation has ever allowed Pierre de Coubertin, the IOC and his supporters to promote the unfounded claim to all of the credit for founding the modern Olympics?

Even the Athens 2004 website erroneously gave him credit without any mention of Soutsos, Zappas, Vikelas and Averoff. ‘’Yet without the drive and the passion of these patriotic men, there would have been no idea for reviving the Games, no motivation nor any impetus and certainly no money to re establish them. Without them, the ‘’preliminary” Games, if that term may be employed, would never have transpired and thus the push for a modern Olympics would have been without any imagination, any practical examples to build upon.’’ (28) ‘’It is time that the world recognised what the Hellenes did, well over a century ago but which they too have regrettably forgotten.’’ (29)

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(30)

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References 1

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https://stillmed.olympic.org/media/Document%20Library/Museum/Visit/TOMSchools/Teaching-Resources/The-Modern-Olympic-Games/The-ModernOlympic-Games-EN.pdf#_ga=2.239515786.883064449.1586181583847936083.1586181583 http://ftp.informatik.rwth-aachen.de/olympics/revival/social.html http://ftp.informatik.rwth-aachen.de/olympics/revival/first_attempts.html; https://blogs.bl.uk/european/2018/10/where-are-your-olympic-games-panagiotissoutsos.html Epirotes are the people of the state of Epiros/ Hpeirus in the north of the Republic of the Hellenes (a.k.a Greece)

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Gerlach, Larry R. (2004). The Winter Olympics: From Chamonix to Salt Lake. University of Utah Press. p. 25

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V. Skafidas, “Istoria tou Metsovou” [History of Metsovo], Epirotiki Estia 12/131, 133 (1963), pp. 294–299, 392-396.

G. Plataris-Tzimas, Kodikas Diathikon, Meizones kai elassones euergetes tou Metsovou [Log of Wills, Major and Minor Benefactors of Metsovo], Vol. A’, publ. of the Prefecture of Ioannina and the City of Metsovo, Metsovo/Athens 2004, pp. 288–333.

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Llewellyn Smith, Olympics in Athens, London, Profile Books,, p 13; FROM

THE VISION TO THE REALITY : DIMITRIOS VIKELAS, BY PETROS LINARDOS; Hellenic Ministry of Culture. 2002 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Zappas_Olympics https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Panagiotis_Soutsos Young David C. (2004). A brief history of the Olympic games. Brief histories of the ancient world, p 141; Golden Mark (2009). Greek Sport and Social Status. Fordyce W. Mitchel Memorial Lecture. University of Texas Press., p 128

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Toohey Kristine; Veal Anthony James (2007). The Olympic Games: A Social Science Perspective Publishing Series. CABI. pp. 29–30.

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

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https://theolympians.co/tag/panagiotis-soutsos/ 13 https://library.olympic.org/Default/search.aspx?SC=CATALOGUE&QUERY=so utsos&QUERY_LABEL=#/Detail/(query:(Id:'0_OFFSET_0',Index:1,NBResults:2,PageR ange:3,SearchQuery:(CloudTerms:!(),FacetFilter:%7B%7D,ForceSearch:!t,Page:0,PageR ange:3,QueryGuid:'8603951f-374b-4bca-aa943c981de802d0',QueryString:zappas,ResultSize:10,ScenarioCode:CATALOGUE,Scenari oDisplayMode:displaystandard,SearchLabel:'',SearchTerms:zappas,SortField:!n,SortOrder:0,TemplateParams:( Scenario:'',Scope:Default,Size:!n,Source:'',Support:''),UseSpellChecking:!n))); 14 Wenlock Olympian Society archives Minute Book 2 15 Young,D C, A Brief History of the Olympic Games, Wiley, London, 2008 at p 149

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Constable, G, The XI, XII & XIII Olympiads: Berlin 1936, St. Moritz 1948, Vol 11, p 104

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https://www.britannica.com/sports/Olympic-Games/History-of-the-modernSummer-Games https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Summer_Olympic_Games https://www.zappas.org/timeline.shtml ibid https://greece.greekreporter.com/2019/04/07/the-first-modern-olympics-are-heldin-greece-in-april-1896/

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Smith,L., Olympics in Athens, London, Profile Books, p 79-81

ibid, at p 61 http://ftp.informatik.rwth-aachen.de/olympics/revival/vikelas.html https://www.ellines.com/en/myths/13925-the-first-president-of-internationalolympic-committee/ https://alchetron.com/George-Averoff ibid A T Kenos, Olympic certified weightlifting coach ibid https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1896_Summer_Olympics

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