Coubertin revived the Olympics with an 1894 committee
Baron Pierre de Coubertin set up the International Olympic Committee in 1894, and two years later Athens staged the first modern Games. He was reviving a festival held at Olympia in Greece from the eighth century BC into the fourth century AD, now split into separate Summer and Winter editions.
The ancient Games were religious as well as athletic, held every four years at the sanctuary of Zeus. The festival was centred on the second full moon following midsummer, which normally landed in late summer, after the harvest but before the olive picking, and heralds from Elis announced the date. Legend credits Heracles with founding them and pacing out 200 steps to define the stadion, which became a unit of length. The accepted start date, 776 BC, rests on inscribed lists of footrace winners, and for the first thirteen festivals that sprint was the only event; the next Olympiad was even named after its victor.
At first only legitimate sons of free-born Greeks could compete, but after Macedonian and then Roman conquest the ten judges let in any Greek speaker. Perhaps 40,000 spectators travelled to watch running, wrestling, pankration and chariot races.
The modern movement added the Paralympics, Youth Games for ages 14 to 18, five continental games and the World Games, and dropped Coubertin's pure amateurism after rule abuses. The two world wars cancelled the 1916, 1940 and 1944 Games, Cold War boycotts thinned 1980 and 1984, and COVID-19 pushed Tokyo 2020 into 2021. Since the 1994 Winter Games the two editions alternate two years apart instead of sharing a year.
The IOC chooses hosts, sets the programme and funds the Games under the Olympic Charter, alongside international federations and national committees. More than 14,000 athletes contested 448 events across 40 sports at the 2020 and 2022 Games combined. Since 1996 almost every nation has competed, bringing problems of doping, bribery, match fixing, boycotts and terrorism.
Source: Olympic Games
