You can feel the gratitude in Baron Pierre de Coubertin’s heart as he expresses his admiration for the deportment of the athletes at the 1924 Paris Olympic Games, the last of the seven Olympic Games the Baron presided over.  Seven years later as he wrote his “Olympic Memoirs,” he recalled the enduring impression those young athletes made on him—and on the world—in the chapter titled, “The Eighth Olympiad: Paris 1924.”

“First of all, there was the universal good humor of the athletes ... How balanced and how strong in the serenity of their practical philosophy do the actual athletes appear! There are obviously exceptions, many of them! But the overall impression remains.”