ABSTRACT
The ideology of Olympism in the modern context was the product of interaction between a relatively small number of actors drawn into the process of the revival of the Olympic Games and the establishment of the IOC in the late nineteenth century, including figures such as Penney-Brookes, Vikelas and Coubertin. The first International Olympic Committee, established at the 1894 International Athletic Congress in Paris, consisted of 14 men, all of whom can be described as members of the ruling class. The IOC, an organization which in principle resisted any government support or intervention, could not have succeeded unless its members were independently wealthy and had plenty of leisure time to devote to the project. ‘Hellenism'may be taken to signify the modern construct of a cultural and philosophical perspective which spread from Greece through most of the ancient world from the year 333 BC.
