In a 1910 essay entitled, All Sports, which appeared in the Olympic Review, Baron Pierre de Coubertin thought it was important to remind everyone that the Olympic Games were created as a festival for all modern sports.  He wanted to ensure that no one applied the word Olympic to single sports events—and he wanted to emphasize that all sports belong.  As evidenced by this illustration of the Olympic Games back in the early days, the program was always meant to change to incorporate new sports over time.  That flexibility has become essential today—as we look forward to seeing surfing, sport climbing, skateboarding, karate and baseball/softball as part of the 2020 Olympic Games in Tokyo.

Here’s a larger insert connecting today’s quote with Coubertin’s primary argument:

“It appears that in several countries, people are having difficulty in conceiving of the primordial and essential truth that the Olympic Games is a gathering of all sports. Yet that is how it was in the past and, even without being a great scholar, everyone generally knows that the horse races and boxing matches followed the foot races at Olympia.  So no one was surprised that the basic charter of the restoration of the Olympiads should once again proclaim this logical and legitimate principle. From the very beginning, it was understood that the modern Games would include all forms of exercise practiced throughout the world today, to the greatest extent possible … It is impossible to overemphasize the fact that the word ‘Olympic’ cannot and should not be used except for gatherings of a variety of sports … What is Olympic is universal.”