Baron Pierre De Coubertin

We visited Paris in the Summer of 2024, the same year as the Olympic Games. Therefore, the goal of this trackable is to go to Athens, the home of the Olympic Games

Nous avons visité Paris à l’été 2024, la même année que les Jeux Olympiques. Par conséquent, le but de ce trackable est d’aller à Athènes, la maison des Jeux Olympiques

Baron Pierre de Coubertin was only 1.62 metres tall, but by many measures, he was a giant of the 20th century. Born into the French aristocracy on 1 January 1863, he became a champion of the common man, embracing the values of France’s Third Republic liberty, equality, fraternity as a young adult.
Coubertin set out on a quest to give French children what British students already had: sport in education. By the age of 25, he had become a leader of French education reform.
At the 1889 Paris Universal Exposition, he organised the world’s first Congress on Physical Education and began to build the international network of educators, politicians, aristocrats, commerce, culture and sport who would help him fulfil his Olympic dream. Five years later, on 23 June 1894, in the grand amphitheatre of the Sorbonne University, 2,000 people rose in acclamation of his proposal to revive the Olympic Games.

Like so many visionaries, he had his blind spots. Although he said about sport: “For every man, woman and child, it offers an opportunity for self-improvement,” he openly opposed the participation of women in elite track and field events throughout his life. Nevertheless, the participation of women in the Olympic Games grew six-fold under Coubertin’s presidency. Over time, the Olympic Games became a triumph of diversity for men and women, uniting all nations in friendship and peace through sport in the world’s greatest celebration of humanity.