Stamata Revithi
The 1896 Olympic Games were the first held in the Modern era and the most important international multi-sport event Greece had ever hosted. The rules of the Games generally excluded women from competition. Influenced by both his times—in the Victorian era women were considered to be inferior to men—and his admiration for the ancient Olympic Games, when only men were allowed to participate in the events, Baron Pierre de Coubertin, the visionary of the modern Olympic Games, was not in favour of women's participation in the Olympic Games or in sports generally. He believed that a woman's greatest achievement would be to encourage her sons to be distinguished in sports and to applaud a man's effort.
Panagiotis Soutsos
Finally, in early 1856, a wealthy merchant of the Greek diaspora in Romania, Evangelis Zappas, inspired by this revival effort was determined to found the Olympics and suggested to the Greek government to sponsor the entire project of the Olympic revival, providing also cash prizes for the victors. In 13 July 1856, Panagiotis Soutsos wrote and published an article titled "Evangelis Zappas" in his own newspaper, making Zappas' proposal widely known to the public and triggering a series of events. On 15 November 1859, 25 years after he conceived the idea, the first modern revival of the athletic Olympic Games took place in Athens. Moreover, on 18 October 1859, when his Olympic dream became reality, he published an account of the Games' events paying tribute to its sponsor, Evangelis Zappas.