In a letter to the members of the International Olympic Committee in January of 1919, just months after World War I had ended, Baron Pierre de Coubertin reminded the IOC of one of its most significant achievements:  creating unity among various sports organizations that had opposed each other before they began to cooperate in the Olympic Games.  By bringing together the reigning authorities of athletics, gymnastics, cycling, boxing, wrestling, swimming, etc., the Olympic Movement had opened the door to a new era of multi-sport cooperation and prosperity.  As he stirred his membership to pick up the pieces of the Movement after the war, Coubertin wanted them to keep their past achievements in mind--and to remind them that the link between Olympic sport and education was still of paramount importance to him.

“(Creating) athletic eclecticism that has been both the prerequisite and the greatest benefit of restored Olympism. Until then, practitioners of the various sports had paid no attention to each other, or had been adversaries. They lived in isolation, believing that their preferred exercises were mutually exclusive, or mutually harmful. Olympism required them to work together. In this way, Olympism has done more than merely intensify the athletic movement. It has opened up new and fruitful paths for physical education.”