In the youthful character of the Olympic Games, Baron Pierre de Coubertin envisioned a constant renewal of humanity. In their four year increments, the Games are timed to offer each generation a chance to debut their talents before the world and present their emergent styles through 'all forms of youthful activity.' Looking back from the perspective of what we have just seen in the Winter Games, it is all the more remarkable that a 19th century aristocrat was able to conceive of an event and a movement of such enduring significance. Writing in his Olympic Memoirs in 1930, Coubertin set forth his notion of the celebration each edition of the Games would foster.

"(The Games are a quadrennial) festival of supreme efforts, multiple ambitions and all forms of youthful activity celebrated by each succeeding generation as it arrives on the threshold of adulthood."