Page:Coubertin - The Meeting of the Olympian Games, 1900.djvu/3

Rh new Olympiads should be celebrated in a different city of the world, and why Athens was chosen as the scene of the first Olympian meeting in 1896, and Paris as that of the second, four years later. Personally, I cannot repress a strong desire that the third Olympian Games, those of 1904, should take place at New York; then the distinctly cosmopolitan character of my enterprise will be clearly shown.

As concerns variety, I have good reason to rejoice; for nothing will resemble the festivals at Athens in 1896 less than those at Paris in 1900. We have not been drawn into the error of constructing a cardboard Stadium to reproduce that of Pericles, with the hill of Montmartre in the background to replace the Acropolis on its rock. This would have been ridiculous and paltry. We began by considering with good reason that there was no need to trouble ourselves about the preparation of amusements and special festivities, because the Exposition in itself would constitute a permanent festival full of attractions, and hence the organizing committee need only be engaged with the technical part of the sport in question. It happened that at Athens this point had been rather neglected, because the committee was also engaged with the interests of the spectators, and had to take measures for their amusement, for the decoration of the sights and monuments, and for the preparation of attractions of all kinds, in order to bring spectators together in as large numbers as possible and to detain them. Now the same anxiety does not exist, and the interests of the athletes predominate above all else.

The Olympian organization created by the Congress of 1894 is very simple. It consists in an International Committee, of which I have the honor to be President, which numbers about twenty members belonging to the chief nationalities of Europe and America. These include, for example, Prince Serge Beliosselsky for Russia, Lord Ampthill for England, Count Brunetta d'Usseaux for Italy, Commandant Balck for Sweden, Baron de Tuyll for Holland, Professor William M. Sloane, of the University of Columbia, for the United States, etc. The whole business of the International Committee consists in promoting the celebration of the Games, and in deciding in what country they shall take place. This being done, the International Committee leaves the