In their modern incarnation, the Olympic Games sought to take the best features of the sport and cultural festival from Ancient Olympia and reinterpret them for contemporary times.  But while modernization was central to Baron Pierre de Coubertin’s mission, he never lost sight of his debt to history.  In fact, he had an exquisite sense of history and worked to ensure that the rituals and competitions of the modern Olympic Games paid proper homage to their archaic origins.  At various times, he sought to ensure the modern Games were shrouded in the prestige of cultural events and intellectual debate over their role in civil society—not unlike the IOC is doing today with its new Olympism In Action forums.  This text is taken from an article in Le Sport Suisse in 1915, which was essentially the transcript of a radio broadcast the Baron had delivered at the time.

“I hope that history will realize the relevance of the intellectual events organized in parallel with the Games, a natural aspect of them as Olympism belongs to history. Celebrating the Olympic Games is reclaiming history.”