So close to Paris

By Rosa Covarrubias

It is a special year for the entire sport. 

It was here where it all began, where the dream of having an Olympic Games of the modern era was reborn. A city full of modernity, glamour and that marked the direction in which the world should turn. 

It was in Paris, in the amphitheater of the Sorbonne, where a "madman" named Pierre de Coubertin, in June 1894, managed to convince the congressmen present at the International Athletic Congress, to restore the Olympic Games as it was done in ancient Greece. 

Athens hosted the first Olympic Games of the modern era in 1896 and Paris was chosen to host the second Games, but that multidisciplinary event was part of the Universal Exposition of the French capital, lasting 5 months and allowing, for the first time, the participation of women in the summer competition.