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.
Participation of women in the Olympics
In 1919, French feminist, translator and amateur rower, Alice Milliat initiated talks with the IOC and International Association of Athletics Federations with the goal of having women's athletics included at the 1924 Summer Games. After her request was refused, she organized the first "Women's Olympiad", hosted in Monte Carlo. This would become the precursor to the first Women's World Games. The event was seen as a protest against the IOC's refusal to include females in athletics and a message to their President Pierre de Coubertin who was opposed to women at the Olympics. Milliat went on to found the International Women's Sports Federation who organized the first Women's World Games.