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
Olympic Committee of Catalonia May 1989 the Olympic Committee of Catalonia. After decades frozen and forgotten, in October 2016, during the process of self-determination of Catalonia, its directive council met in order to approve new statutes of the organization, as the originals were still the ones of 1989, clearly obsoletes. The goals of this changes are: restore the activities of the COC, adapt it to legislative changes in international sport of recent decades and prepare it for eventual international recognition in case of independence of Catalonia. Gerard Esteva, president of the UFEC, was elected as new president of the Committee. Olympic Committee of Catalonia