1896 Athina Summer Games

The Games themselves were far from the caliber of sport we expect today. Only 15 countries participated and many of the top athletes in the world did not compete, as the Games were not well advertised. The Modern Olympic Games began with an Opening Ceremony on 25 March 1896, or 6 April 1896, depending on whether or not one used the Julian Calendar (then used in Greece) or the more modern Gregorian Calendar, used by most of the world in 1896, and to this day.

The first event of the modern Olympics was the first heat of the 100 metres, won by Frank Lane, a student at Princeton. But the first championship decided was that of the triple jump, won by James Connolly, a Harvard student, who left the Cambridge school to compete in the Olympics. He became the first known Olympic champion since Varasdates of Armenia had won the boxing in 369 A.D.

The Americans dominated the athletics events, winning all but the 800 metres, 1,500 metres, and the marathon. The marathon was based on the legend of Pheidippides although the more likely spelling was Philippides. According to Herodotus, Philippides was sent to Sparta from Athens asking for help in the battle. After the battle, a runner, whose name was Pheidippides per Lucian and Eucles per Plutarch, was sent to Marathon from Athens to tell of the victory. Further details are sketchy, though modern legend has Pheidippides/Philippides arriving in Athens to tell of victory in the battle with the words, "Rejoice, we conquer", and then dying from his effort. The legend is now felt to be apocryphal but it was the reason for the creation of the race from Marathon to Athens, a distance of about 25 miles.

In the marathon, there were several early leaders, notably Teddy Flack of Australia, who had won the 800 and 1,500 metres. But midway through the race, Spyros Louis, a Greek shepherd, took the lead and maintained it to the end. When he neared the stadium, messengers came into the ancient vestibule and cried out, "Hellene! Hellene! (A Greek! A Greek!)", sending the crowd into a frenzy. The Olympic pride based on millennia of tradition was then realized by the home crowd, which heretofore had been rather disappointed by the results of the Greek athletes. Louis won the race and became a hero, offered gifts and riches by many different Greek merchants. But he asked only for a cart to help him carry his water and he returned to being a shepherd in his small town of Marousi.

At the end of the 1896 Olympic Games, all the competitors and spectators, including the foreign arrivals, were unanimous in their praise of Athens as an Olympic host. In particular, the American athletes thought that Athens should be the permanent site. The team wrote a letter to Crown Prince Konstantinos on 14 April 1896, which was published in The New York Times on 3 May, suggesting that all future Olympic Games be held in Athens. But it was not to be. Coubertin desired that the Olympic Games should be international in scope and rotate to various cities. He would always support that idea but perhaps the next two Olympics in 1900 and 1904 made him reconsider the idea a bit.