Olympics in Athens 1896 : The Invention of the Modern Olympic Games

by: Smith, M.L.

Price: 39,00 EURO

1 copy in stock

Olympics in Athens 1896 : the invention of the modern olympic games

Author: Michael Llewellyn Smith

Summary:"This book, a contribution to the modern history of Greece, weaves together three strands in the revival of the Olympic games: the nineteenth-century explosion of sport in Britain and the US, France, Germany and other European countries, which created the conditions for international competition; the social and economic progress of the young Greek state which made Athens a plausible candidate as host of the Games; and the genius of the idealist Baron Pierre de Coubertin in yoking together amateur sport and internationalism in a new institution with rich symbolic power." "The story moves from Athens to the Rugby School of Dr. Arnold and Tom Brown; Much Wenlock in Shropshire, home of an Olympic experiment which inspired Coubertin; Paris of the Second Empire; Princeton University in the United States; Olympia in the Peloponnese where extensive German excavations revealed the site of the ancient Olympics; and back to Athens for the climax of the Games. Besides Coubertin, the cast of characters includes the great German classicist Ernst Curtius who revealed Olympia to the world, the best-selling Greek novelist Dimitrios Vikelas who became the first President of the International Olympic Committee (IOC), Crown Prince Constantine who made the Games happen and whose career ended in tragedy, and the young farmer Spyros Louis who won the newly invented Marathon race

Contents:
A little kingdom
The rise of sport
Forerunners: Brookes and Zappas
Pierre de Coubertin
The Paris Congress
Olympia rediscovered
Preparations
Athens revived
The games begin
The games continue
The marathon
The end of the games
Greek epilogue
Athletic Epilogue
2004

Published in the year that The Olympics returned to Athens this is the illuminating story of the making of the modern games, the multinational group of intriguing characters who re-invented them and the first generation of new sporting heroes. 'On 5 April 1896 James B. Connolly of the Suffolk Athletic Club, Boston, projected himself 13 m and 71 cm through the Attic air in the newly restored Panathenaic Stadium of Athens, in the hop, step and jump, and became the first Olympic victor for more than 1500 years.' That opening sentence gives the flavour of a rich and often entertaining work of history that brings together the following intriguing strands: the rise of amateur athletics in Britain, the US, France, Germany and other western countries, each with its own particular stamp; the enormous interest aroused by the excavation of ancient Olympia, the site of the ancient Games; the determination of the eccentric French aristocrat Baron Pierre de Coubertin to embody the amateur athletic ideal in a revival of the Games; and a perception by politicians and the Greek royal family that hosting Coubertin's Games could help to put the young Greek state on the European map.

Olympics in Athens 1896 : The Invention of the Modern Olympic Games

by: Smith, M.L.

• ISBN-13: 9781861973429 / 978-1-86197-342-9
• ISBN-03: 186197342X / 1-86197-342-X
• Profile Books, London, 2004

Price: 39,00 EURO

1 copy in stock