President of the International Olympic Committee congress. Athens was approved to host the 1896 Olympic Games, being the original home of the Olympics, and Vikelas was duly chosen as the first President of the IOC. Pierre, Baron de Coubertin, took over the IOC presidency when Demetrius Vikelas stepped down after the Olympics in his own country. Despite its initial success, the Olympic Movement faced hard times, as the 1900 Games (in de Coubertin's own Paris) and 1904 Games were both upstaged by World's Fairs—Exposition Universelle in 1900 and Louisiana Purchase Exposition in 1904—and received little attention. The 1906 Intercalated Games revived the momentum, and the Olympic
President of the Organising Committee for the Olympic Games to heading the organizing committee. He later briefly served as the United States Ambassador to Russia. Following the 2002 Winter Olympics in Salt Lake City, Mitt Romney ran for Governor of Massachusetts and was elected Governor with nearly 50% of the vote in the election. He served one term as governor. He was the Republican nominee for President of the United States in the 2012 Presidential Election but lost to then-incumbent President Barack Obama. Yoshirō Mori who is the head of the organizing committee for the 2020 Summer Olympics in Tokyo served as Prime Minister of Japan from 2000 to