June 23, 1894 – a historic day in sports history, a day which will be remembered by everyone for the rest of their lives, for changing it, for the better. It’s been 129 years of the founding of the International Olympic Committee (IOC) and the man responsible for it was Pierre de Coubertin. A French historian, Coubertin was single-handedly responsible for the revolution in French education as believed in the importance of sports in education.
Coubertin was bitten by the insect of reviving the Olympics at any cost. The Frenchman was inspired by the ancient Olympic Games held in Greece’s Olympia which ended in 393 A.D. Driven by his single main objective of reviving the Olympics, Coubertin’s first major step towards it was the organisation of the first Congress on Physical Education at the 1889 Paris Universal Exposition.
After which he built a network of educators, politicians, and people from various other fields including commerce, culture and sport as he started believing in his dream. Five years later on June 23, 1894, his long-seen dream of getting the Olympics back on track was fulfilled as he proposed the Games’ revival in the grand amphitheater of the Sorbonne University.
Coubertin’s main objective was to make the world better and more peaceful by educating young people through sports. The International Olympic Committee (IOC) was formed under his guidance in 1894 and two years later, the first Olympic games of the modern world took place in Athens.
Coubertin was the IOC president for 29 years from 1896 to 1925. He was responsible for the creation of the Olympics’ five-ring symbol in 1913. Not just the symbol, the opening and closing ceremonies, the protocol, oath by athletes, everything was introduced by him.
As the Olympics gear up for the next edition in Paris next year, his famous quote “The important thing in life is not the triumph but the fight; the essential thing is not to have won, but to have fought well” still lives on.
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