ARENA OF AMBITION Baron Pierre de Coubertin’s decision to resurrect the Olympics had the aim of bringing “the youth of all countries periodically together for amicable trials of muscular strength and agility”. The swiftly renovated Panathenaic Stadium in Athens was to be the main location for the event’s rebirth
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The noise would have been deafening, 60,000 cheering voices resonating around a stadium the shape of an elongated horseshoe. It would have been a noise like no living person had heard before. And it was a noise that celebrated the deeds of a lowly water-carrier, a young man unknown to the crowd a couple of hours before.