The Century of Light and the demands of people for national independence and self determination brought the eternal values of the classical Greek spirit once again to the foreground. Amongst these was faith in the concurrent development of the body and the mind and the ideals of sport as expressed in its finest form in the Olympic Games of antiquity.

It is in this light that the efforts made during the 18^th century, and chiefly at the beginning of the 19^th century, can be explained. Many times, however, these efforts did not have a purely athletic nature. Various European countries such as Poland in 1830 and Sweden in 1839 organised so-called “Greek Games” for professional athletes. Such events took place until the last decade of the 19^th century and not only in Europe.

In 1834 and in 1836 Pan-Scandinavian Olympic Games were organised and in 1844 Travelling Olympic Games took place in Germany. From 1862 to 1864 the Liverpool Athletic Club organised three Olympic Games - events which the Great Britain Athletic Union copied in 1866 and 1867 when they organised Olympic Festivals in Wales. Approximately 25 years later in 1893, San Francisco in the United States staged the Greco-Roman Games.

Among the competitions organised before the Games in 1896,
were the 1877 games organised by William Brookes

Within a general climate of the resurgence of sport, various systems of exercise were developed in Europe. The most significant of these were the German and the Swedish. The former was based on empirical knowledge and spread chiefly throughout continental Europe. The latter, however, proved to be superior as it was soundly based on science and in a short time spread throughout the Scandinavian countries. The feeling of athletic euphoria which began in England and was expressed in the revival of the ancient events of racing, jumping and throwing, spread to the United States where sport and exercise aficionados gave it a warm welcome.

Rigas Velestinles and the cover of his work “The Olympics”

In the 1890s, sport had spread to almost all the European nations. What was missing was international contact amongst all the local bodies and a coordination of their activities as each country had its own methods for sport and for competitions. Later, it became clear how important the contribution of the Olympic Games of 1896 was; it was because of these Games that nations came into contact to begin to give competitive events a fixed form and to decide on mutually acceptable regulations for them.

In Greece, before the Revolution of Independence, the echoes of the European revival of sport were expressed in the literary and philosophical enquires of a limited number of scholars. Rigas Velestinles, Stephanos Kommetas, Alexandros Soutsos and other men of letters evoked the ancestral “kleos” (the glory one receives as a result of achievement) through their vivid descriptions of the Olympic Games of antiquity in their plays, writings and poetry.

The first effort to introduce modern Greeks to sport took place after Independence. With the Royal Decree of 1834 “On Primary Schools”, the newly formed Greek state provided for the establishment of a gym in the capital city, Nafplio. The system of exercise used was the German one because of the Bavarian descent of the royal family. Under the guidance of a teacher, boys had the opportunity to take part in physical education classes two times a week. The gym was equipped with horizontal bars, parallel bars, dumb-bells, rings and climbing ropes. The same Decree provided for obligatory physical education, dance, swimming and music lessons in the Military Academy.

Two years later a new Royal Decree, “On Secondary Schools”, set obligatory lessons in physical education on Wednesdays and Saturdays. G. Pagon, the first Greek teacher of physical education, was to be responsible for these lessons. However, this measure was never implemented because conditions (financial troubles, military conflict, lack of proper organisation) did not allow.

The first page of the Royal Decree “On Primary Schools” (1834)

Ioannis Fokianos

For the next three decades (1830-1860) there was no significant progress made in the field of physical education. In this period, however, gyms were founded in Aegina, Nafplio and Syros and the Fire Brigade set up its own gym. The only sports that took place in these gymnasiums were horse riding, fencing and shooting.

Another notable effort which did not, however, come to fruition was an 1862 law which attempted to introduce physical education to the primary schools in the provinces. E. Delegiorgis planned to establish physical education facilities in all schools and hold annual competitions at which victors would be given awards.

In 1878, following an initiative by Th. Deligiannis, the Minister for Church Affairs and Public Education, the Didaskaleion was established in Athens at which physical education was part of the core curriculum. One year later in 1879, Ioannis Fokianos, one of the people who contributed decisively to the spread of physical education in Greece in the 19^th century, was made director of the Public Gymnasium.