Athens Revives Olympics: Ancient Spirit Returns to World

The 1906 Intercalated Games opened in Athens on April 22, 1906, drawing over 900 athletes from twenty countries to a competition that briefly revitalized the Olympic movement but was later stripped of official recognition. The International Olympic Committee had intended to hold "intercalated" (intermediate) games in Athens every four years between the regular Olympics, a compromise designed to give Greece a permanent role in the Games while the main Olympics rotated between host cities. The 1906 event was the only intercalated games ever held. The Athens games were better organized than any previous Olympics. The 1900 Paris and 1904 St. Louis games had been embarrassments: spread across months, poorly attended, and overshadowed by the World's Fairs they were attached to. Athens 1906, by contrast, featured a focused program, a purpose-built stadium (the Panathenaic Stadium, restored for the 1896 Games), and genuine international competition. The athlete experience was closer to what the modern Olympics would become. Teams marched behind national flags in the opening ceremony for the first time. Events were completed in a concentrated two-week period. National Olympic committees sent their strongest competitors. The American team, led by track stars like Martin Sheridan, dominated the medal count. The games attracted more countries and more serious competition than either the 1900 or 1904 Olympics. They restored credibility to a movement that Pierre de Coubertin's organization was struggling to sustain. Many historians credit the 1906 Athens games with saving the Olympics from the commercial chaos that had nearly destroyed them. The IOC later removed the 1906 games from its official records, partly because Coubertin opposed the idea of permanent Greek hosting rights and partly because the intercalated concept was abandoned after plans for a 1910 edition fell through due to political instability in Greece. Athletes who won medals in Athens in 1906 do not appear in official Olympic records.