Baron Pierre de Coubertin

"The important thing in the Olympic Games is to participate. The most important thing in life is not to win in spite of everything. The most important subject is having struggled in the best way. If we spread this and have this adopted as necessary, we shall have created a more powerful, more courageous and most important of all, more ethical and more generous mankind"      
                                           
                                                                     Baron Pierre de Coubertin

The founding father of the modern Olympic Games, Pierre de Coubertin, was born on 1 January 1863 in Paris to a noble French family. Coubertin was very well educated and he had many hobbies such as horse riding, rowing, boxing and fencing. He believed that practicing sport would strengthen his body; he also played the piano and used to write memoirs. Although Coubertin was known to be an aristocrat, he established communication with farmers and villagers whenever an opportunity arose. Coubertin was interested in "Education and Sport" and in 1883, when he was 20; he traveled to England where he made researches on pedagogy. In 1889 he went to the United States and when he came back to France he started publishing "Athletics" and "Athletic Sports" magazines.

Meanwhile, the French Societies of Athletics Sports (USFSA) was founded to manage the athletic sports and Pierre de Coubertin became its Secretary General. During the fifth anniversary meeting of USFSA which took place in Sorbonne on 25 November 1892, de Coubertin made a speech entitled "Physical Training in the Modern World" in this speech he was talking about "the restarting of the Olympic Games" for the first time. Thus, a commission under the chairmanship of Baron Pierre de Coubertin was formed in order to restart the Olympic Games and to form the International Olympic Committee (IOC). It was decided to make a congress where Olympic principles would be discussed and on 16 June 1894 a total of 2000 people convened in "Sorbonne Congress".

On 23 June 1894 the "Citius, Altius, Fortius" (Faster, Higher, Stronger) was introduced by Baron de Coubertin and it became the first official Olympic motto.