One of the most difficult challenges at the start of Baron Pierre de Coubertin’s career in the late 1880s was getting the various sports bodies in France to cooperate.  In gymnastics, for instance, there were multiple entities that clashed over competition rules, eligibility, and scoring.  They spent more time battling each other for control than they did promoting their sport—and the problems were only multiplied on the international level. But across the next decade, Coubertin helped lead the effort to standardize the rules across all sports, nationally and internationally.  By the time of the 1912 Stockholm Olympic Games, the cooperation between sports organizations reached a zenith that led the Baron to write about the progress he witnessed.  The passage below is from his article, Athletic Unification, which appeared in the Olympic Review in December 1913.  His satisfaction is obvious.

“The great movement toward athletic unification that Olympism has set in motion continues to progress day by day. The rapprochement in nearly all branches of sports, something utterly unexpected by the previous generation of athletes, has been perhaps the most striking feature of the year that is drawing to a close.”