History

There were 245 athletes registered for the inaugural 1896 Games at Athens, but 164 of them were Greek. They and 81 other athletes, representing 13 other countries, competed in the 43 events. The program included nine sports: cycling, fencing, gymnastics, shooting, swimming, tennis, track and field, weightlifting, and wrestling. (Rowing and sailing races had also been planned, but they were canceled because of bad weather.)

Most of the foreign athletes paid their own way, and there were no standards of eligibility. Some of the competitors, in fact, were tourists who just happened to be visiting Greece at the time and decided to enter on the spur of the moment.

Germany and France had the largest representation, with 19 athletes each, followed by the United States with 14. There were no national teams as such, but the Boston Athletic Association brought a contingent of athletes, as did the German Gymnastics Society, the Union of French Athletic Associations, and the British Athletic Association.

Although the winners are listed, retroactively, as gold medalists, there were no gold medals in 1896 and only the first two finishers in each event received prizes: A silver medal and a crown of olive branches for first place, a bronze medal and crown of laurel for second.

The first champion of the modern Olympics was James Connolly of the United States, who won the triple jump. Paul Masson of France won three of the six cycling events and Hungary's Alfred Hajos won two of the four swimming races, while the U. S. dominated track and field, winning nine of twelve events.

The marathon was run for the first time in 1896. It retraced the legendary 25-mile route that had been run by Pheidippides in 490 BC to tell Athenians that the invading Persians had been beaten back at Marathon. (According to the legend, Pheidippides died of exhaustion after delivering the message. There was another legend, recorded by Herodotus, that Pheidippides had run the 150 miles from Athens to Sparta before the battle in order to enlist the aid of the Spartans.)

A previously unknown Greek shepherd, Spyridon Louis, became a national hero by winning the race. Along with his Olympic prizes, Louis won free shaves for the rest of his life from a patriotic barber and free meals, any time he asked, at an Athens restaurants.

Although the competition was not of the highest quality, the 1896 Olympics were considered a great success, in large part because of the enthusiasm of the Greek spectators. At the closing banquet, King George of Greece suggested that Athens should become the permanent home of the Olympic Games, but Coubertin and the IOC stuck to the original idea of holding the 1900 games in Paris.

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