On April 6, 1896, the Olympic Games were revived in their ancient homeland of Athens, Greece—1,500 years after the sporting event's cessation. Pierre de Coubertin, an aristocratic Frenchman, had succeeded in his lifetime goal of reviving the Games and creating a movement.
The modern day Olympic Games bring together the world's best athletes for competition in winter and summer sports every four years. Athletes now compete in dozens of sports, in addition to the original ones of athletics (track and field), boxing, wrestling, chariot racing and martial arts. The Olympic Movement has also opened its arms to the Paralympic movement. After the Olympic Games end in each Host City, disabled athletes gather two weeks later to compete in the 20 sports of the Paralympics.
Although fierce athletic competition dominates the two-week festivals of the Winter and Summer Games, it is only a means to the greater goal of the Olympic Movement—fairness, peace, education, and friendship among people throughout the world. That greater goal does not even include winning. Coubertin once said, "The most important thing in the Olympic Games is not winning but taking part; the essential thing in life is not conquering but fighting well."
In its third century of existence, the modern Olympic Games is now the only competition that gathers athletes from almost every country in the world to compete in several sports. At the 2004 Summer Olympic Games in Athens, Greece, 11,099 athletes from 201 countries participated in 28 sports and 400 events. The Paralympics has expanded greatly since its first games in 1960 in Rome, Italy. More countries competed at the Athens 2004 Paralympics (136 countries, with a total of 3,806 athletes) than did in the 1972 Munich Olympic Games.