Olympic Games Evangelos Zappas, a wealthy Greek-Romanian philanthropist, first wrote to King Otto of Greece, in 1856, offering to fund a permanent revival of the Olympic Games. Zappas sponsored the first Olympic Games in 1859, which was held in an Athens city square. Athletes participated from Greece and the Ottoman Empire. Zappas funded the restoration of the ancient Panathenaic Stadium so that it could host all future Olympic Games. The stadium hosted Olympics in 1870 and 1875. Thirty thousand spectators attended that Games in 1870, though no official attendance records are available for the 1875 Games. In 1890, after attending the Olympian
Athletics at the 2015 European Games to the top three nations. Medals are not awarded for individual events. The top four nations also win promotion from the Third League of the European Team Championships to the Second League. As required by the European Team Championship format, both genders compete in the non-Olympic 3000m event, while Olympic events longer than 5000m, and combined events, are not held. Athletics at the European Games offers possible qualification standards for the Rio 2016 Summer Olympics. A second non-medal athletics competition was held as a series of demonstration events on the streets of Baku in a Great City Games format. Events