De Coubertin visited Wenlock in October 1890. At that time, he was deeply interested in physical education, believing that its inclusion in the curriculum of French schools would contribute to France’s “grandeur”, both political and military. He had already been to England in the 1880s, but this visit to Dr. Brookes came after he had founded, in 1888, the Comité pour la Propagation des Exercises Physiques (also known as the Comité Jules Simon). It was his shared (with Brookes) enthusiasm for general education, physical training, and sport that prompted the journey, and once there, de Coubertin discovered the Olympic movement.
Brookes introduced him to the idea of an Olympic revival and told him about earlier efforts, his own Olympian festivals in Much Wenlock, as well as those held in Greece under Zappas’ patronage. By then, however, the Olympic movement in Greece was all but dead. The “Committee for the Olympics”, which administered Zappas’ legacy, was dominated by persons openly hostile to athletic competition. They had begun diverting the funds meant for the Games into industrial projects instead. As for Brookes’ festivals, they too were fading: the “amateur” victory of the elitist clubs had drained the movement’s vitality. Old and ailing, Brookes had already seen his appeal to Greece for an “International Olympic Movement” and an Olympian festival in Athens blocked by the anti-athletic clique. Yet, when de Coubertin arrived, he could not resist speaking of his cherished Olympic vision.
Back in Paris, de Coubertin behaved as though he had conceived a wholly new idea. During the annual meeting of the Union des Sociétés Françaises de Sports Athlétiques (USFSA) in November 1892, he proposed “the restoration of the Olympic Games”. He later claimed that his audience was baffled by the novelty of the suggestion, though in practice his speech received polite applause and little follow-up. Most sporting associations were absorbed in managing their everyday affairs. Yet de Coubertin persisted. The following year, he organized an International Athletic Congress to be held in Paris in June 1894.
By April, de Coubertin had barely advertised his congress, and almost no delegates had registered. David C. Young recounts what happened behind the scenes, altering the course of history: in early April, at the baron’s request, de Coubertin’s friend Charles Waldstein “laid the question before the Greek royal family”. Waldstein secured a long audience with Constantine, heir to the Greek throne. In mid-April, he wrote to de Coubertin that Prince Constantine would serve as an honorary member of the Paris Congress. This prompted de Coubertin to dispatch a flurry of invitations for the June event, alongside a request that delegates submit their views on amateurism and the Olympic revival in advance. When Brookes received his invitation, he replied by advocating Greece as the permanent Olympic site—though he allowed that rotations “in or near the Capitals of all nations might also suffice"—and contacted his old friend Charilaos Trikoupis, then prime minister of Greece.
It is striking that de Coubertin deemed it unwise to sideline Greece in his Olympic revival (his anti-hellenic feelings would surface later). And the efforts of his intermediaries, Waldstein and Brookes, bore fruit. Demetrios Vikelas, a Greek who had spent most of his adult life in England and France, had no prior involvement in athletics; but in early June 1894, while residing in Paris, he received a certificate naming him a member of the Panellinios Athletic Club. Soon after came a letter from a friend, urging him to represent the club at de Coubertin’s Congress (as Fokianos, in poor health and lacking foreign languages, could not attend). And at the Congress itself, “as if by previous agreement”, Vikelas was elected chairman of the sub-committee on the Olympic Games.
The common lore holds that Vikelas became the first president of the IOC when, all on his own (as he later claimed), he proposed on the Congress’s final day, June 23, that the Olympic Games begin in Athens, a motion approved by acclamation. In truth, the story unfolded quite differently. According to David C. Young, the Congress was a scripted drama, with delegates as unwitting actors. The minutes reveal that several days earlier, they had voted in favour of inaugural games in London, despite de Coubertin’s proposal for Athens. Curiously, Vikelas did not support the baron’s Athens motion on that first occasion. Later that day, de Coubertin sent a telegram to King George of Greece, who replied with thanks to the Congress and best wishes for the Olympic revival. The only logical explanation, for this exchange and Vikelas’s change of heart, is that de Coubertin and the Greek royal family had already agreed to hold the first modern Olympics in Athens before the Paris Congress convened.
All of a sudden, Vikelas shifted his stance. He attributed this to a discussion with an unnamed friend who “happened to pass through Paris on the evening of June 22”. Most probably, Vikelas—thrust onto the stage without a script—had been unaware of the prior arrangements until King George’s telegram arrived, clarifying his role. During the final plenary session on June 23, he delivered that stirring, patriotic plea on Greece’s behalf; the delegates voted unanimously for Athens, and the rest is history. Vikelas and de Coubertin now faced the task of organizing the Olympics—with less than two years to do so. But that is a story for the next post.
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