Soutsos’ appeal for the revival of the Olympic Games struck a chord in many Greek hearts. Unfortunately, it did not move those who actually had the power to act, except for one man, and what an exception he was.
Evangelis Zappas was born in a village of northern Epirus (a region that today belongs to Albania). As a young man he fought in the Revolution of 1821, and after Greece gained its independence from Ottoman rule, he emigrated to Romania, where he became a highly successful businessman. He amassed a great fortune and, inspired by Soutsos’ campaign for an Olympic revival, decided to finance it. In 1856 he proposed to the Greek government a permanent revival of the ancient Olympic Games, offering King Otto a very substantial sum, but he received no reply. Soutsos, who was aware of Zappas’ initiative, published an article referring to his own earlier efforts—the 1835 memorandum and his 1845 speech—where he had suggested that an exhibition might accompany the Olympic Games, probably a concession to Otto’s government. The article bore a telling title: Evangelis Zappas. Minister Alexandros Rizos Rangavis, who had initially considered Zappas’ proposal preposterous, soon changed tone. He wrote thanking Zappas for his splendid idea but suggested instead the creation of Industrial Olympic Games, focusing on agriculture, craftsmanship, and industry. It is quite clear that Otto’s government wished to redirect Zappas’ generosity toward less athletic purposes. Zappas agreed to fund these Industrial Olympics, but he remained firm in his wish to restore genuine athletic contests. He wanted the ancient Panathenaic Stadium in Athens rebuilt in marble and provided the necessary funds for its restoration. That would not happen during his lifetime, however, and the stadium was still unfinished for the 1896 Games. It reached its all‑marble form—the Kallimarmaro—only around 1900.
The first Zappas Olympiad took place in 1859. Since the Panathenaic Stadium could not yet be used (systematic excavations would not begin until 1869), the events were held in a square in Athens. The King and Queen attended, along with members of the government, the municipal council, and thousands of spectators. Yet the result was a disappointment. The atmosphere was closer to that of a fair than a proper competition, the organization was poor, and the police had no idea how to manage such crowds. One story even tells of a policeman who abandoned his post to take part in a race. The fiasco cast a shadow on athletics and public sport.
It would take more than a decade for another Olympiad to be organized. By then Zappas had died (in 1865), but his cousin Konstantinos, his heir and devoted follower, continued his work. In 1870 the second Zappas Olympiad took place, and this time it was a great success. The freshly excavated Panathenaic Stadium was ready to host the events, giving them both dignity and symbolic weight. Many elements that we now associate with modern Olympic Games appeared for the first time at this event: an opening ceremony, a musical anthem, proper athletic attire, timekeeping, medals and diplomas for the first three athletes, sponsors, and even a closing ceremony. One feature quite foreign to the ancient Games was the presence of women among the spectators.
The success of the second Olympiad encouraged plans for a third, held in 1875. Unfortunately it proved a failure, despite the involvement of Ioannis Fokianos, who played a major role in the birth of physical education in Greece. Two main causes explain this setback. First, the Olympian Committee in charge of Zappas’ inheritance shifted its focus toward industry and the arts. Money was squandered, and the Olympic pavilion that Zappas had imagined became the Zappeion, a building for exhibitions. Second, an anti‑athletic faction complained that in the previous Olympiad athletes from the working class had been allowed to compete—and even to win. They pressed for limiting participation to youth from the “cultured class”. Consequently, only university students were admitted in 1875. A mere twenty‑four athletes competed, the crowd was much smaller, and the royal family did not attend. The press was merciless, and a disheartened Fokianos left Athens for Thessaloniki (still under Turkish rule), where he remained until 1879.
The failure of the third Olympiad gave the Olympian Committee a convenient excuse to postpone the next one. The fourth and last Zappas Olympiad did not take place until 1889. When the Zappeion was inaugurated in 1888, a royal decree ordered that the next Olympiad be held together with a commercial exposition, but the athletic competitions were twice postponed. In the end, Fokianos himself organized them and paid the expenses out of his pocket. The events were not held in the Panathenaic Stadium but in Fokianos’ small gymnasium. On the first day the crowd was so large that the contests could not proceed, so they were postponed again and finally held a few days later, with just thirty athletes taking part (mostly Fokianos’ own students).
That was the end of the Zappas Olympiads. Zappas’ dream of an Olympiad in Greece every four years remained just a dream, seized and rebranded by a French baron who convinced the world that the idea had been his all along. Meanwhile, the vast funds Zappas had set aside for athletics were diverted by the “Olympian Committee” toward projects they deemed of greater importance—though one may well ask, for whom?
Yet Greece was not alone in its attempts to resurrect the Olympic ideal. In the next post, we turn to England—and to the small town of Much Wenlock, where a local doctor’s vision would prove surprisingly influential on the Olympic story to come.
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