The man credited with reviving the Olympics in the late 1800’s was a French aristocrat named Baron Pierre De Coubertin. In his memoir he claimed that idea to revive the Olympic games had been his and his alone. However, historians have pointed out that the “Olympic Idea” had been floating around Europe for many decades before De Coubertin started his quest to create an international Olympic games. Modern Olympic precursors existed in Greece and England before the first IOC sanctioned games. Was the “Olympic Idea” stolen by the IOC? Tune-in and find out how goat-legged gods, Mario Kart tracks, and Olympic pigeon racing all play a role in the story.

Works Cited

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Guttmann, Allen. The Olympics : A History of the Modern Games. 2nd ed., University of Illinois Press, 2002.

Perrottet, Tony. The Naked Olympics : The True Story of the Ancient Games. Random House, 2004.

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Stuttard, David. Power Games : Ritual and Rivalry at the Ancient Greek Olympics. British Museum Press, 2012.

Toohey, Kristine, and A. J. Veal. THE OLYMPIC GAMES: A SOCIAL SCIENCE PERSPECTIVE 2nd Edition. 2007

Young, David C. A Brief History of the Olympic Games. Blackwell Pub., 2004, 

Young, David C. The Modern Olympics : A Struggle for Revival. Johns Hopkins University Press, 1996.