The Olympic Games in Athens in 1896, the first of the modern era, were in many ways a humiliating experience for Baron Pierre de Coubertin. He arrived expecting honors, but the Greek hosts shunted him aside and denied him any public credit or recognition during the celebration.  Despite this insult, he published a half-dozen glowing reports on the Games and their results. Twenty-four years later, he was still singing the praises of Athens, ensuring his Movement continued to bask in the ancient and modern glories of the Hellenes as it rolled toward the future. This quote is taken from “The Contribution of the Seventh Olympiad,” an article about the Antwerp 1920 Games that appeared in La Revue Sportive Illustrée that year.  

“When the Olympic Games were restored in Athens ... the institution received its baptism of tradition at the foot of the Acropolis, its connection to an illustrious past. It was essential that this baptism take place at a site without peer. The halo was placed on the head of Olympism, a sign of the aspirations of its founders and the destiny they sought.”