Atlanta, Georgia: Gateway of Dreams Monument

The Olympics were 100 years old when they arrived in Atlanta in 1996. Naturally, someone needed to pay tribute to that anniversary with a salute to the person most responsible for the start of the Games way back in 1896.

That person was Baron Pierre de Coubertin of France. He had learned about the ancient Games in Greece, and decided to try to revive the event on the sports calendar. The 1896 Games were staged in Athens, and only a couple of World Wars could stop their staging (although the pandemic delayed the competition in 2020).

You can see de Coubertin climbing some stairs, through some Greek columns and toward the Olympic rings and the birds in flight. He was an aristocrat. If you'd like to blame him for the rise of amateur sports - which was basically a way to keep the classes separated, since the wealthy folks didn't want the Great Unwashed around too often - well, you might have a slight case. But things are better now in that department.

de Coubertin provided the words for this bit of video: