In his long struggle to popularize all modern sports and ensure that each and every one had an equal place in the Olympic Games, Baron Pierre de Coubertin did not often play favorites.  But in his “Olympic Letter XX,” which appeared in 1919, the Baron took the wraps off and proclaimed his true love for rowing.  He was then 56, and he practiced what he preached, continuing to row throughout his life.  This photograph was taken on Lake Geneva in 1935 when the Baron was 72.  Note the Chateau d’Ouchy in the background.

“Rowing is the most perfect sport in existence ... It is the rower's pleasure to feel himself a thinking machine, to experience at each stroke how strength wells up within him, spreads out and flows away. With rhythm like music and happening in the heart of nature between air and water, this deliberately disciplined motion is the most satisfying and fortifying in existence.”

Photo: Pierre de Coubertin rowing his boat, 'Yale,’ on Lake Geneva at the age of 72. Rowing was his favorite sport and he considered it one of the best all-around disciplines.