As World War I raged on, destroying life and creating chaos across Europe, Baron Pierre de Coubertin looked to the future with hope, believing Olympism would survive.  He knew the war would eventually end and that its devastating toll would force nation after nation to search for new ways to build a better civil society and a better world. He wanted his colleagues in the IOC to be ready to offer the philosophy of Olympism as a path forward.  With its ultimate goal of opening the doors to social equality and uniting the nations of the world in friendship and peace through sport, the Baron believed his Olympic Movement could help the world recover from the catastrophe of war.  This quote comes from a “Circular Letter” he wrote to the IOC members in January of 1916.

“We have restored an ancient, not a short-lived tradition. However terrible the present upheavals may be, the course of history cannot be interrupted and Olympism has gone down in history.”