Life After Olympic Victory and Legacy
After his epic victory, Louis never ran again because his heart was never in athletics despite the athletic gifts nature had so generously given him, and he continued living and working in his small business. However, he was regarded as a Greek national icon and a sports hero in most of Europe as well since he was regarded as the first marathon winner of the modern Olympics, which was the most significant Olympic event for the better part of the first half of the twentieth century.
Forty years after his marathon victory and only four years before his death, Louis made his last public appearance, when he was invited to be the guest of honor by the German organizers of the 1936 Summer Olympics in Berlin. After bearing the flag of the Greek team during the opening ceremony, he was received with honors by Adolf Hitler, who was a big fan of Louis, and even offered him an olive branch from Olympia, the birthplace of the Olympic Games, as a sign of respect and peace.
Despite the remarkable kindness, admiration, and hospitality Hitler showed the Olympic champion, Louis was the only member of the Greek team who did not greet him with the popular Nazi salute, which surprisingly didn’t bother Hitler at all. When Louis was asked by German and Greek journalists to recall some of his most memorable moments after his triumph he said,
That hour was something unimaginable and it still appears to me in my memory like a dream. . . . Twigs and flowers were raining down on me. Everybody was calling out my name and throwing their hats in the air.
Unfortunately and despite the joy and pride Louis had given to Greece, he died poor and forgotten by the state on March 26, 1940. His legacy, however, is still alive to this day. The Olympic Stadium of Athens, where a major portion of the 2004 Olympics took place, is named Spiros Louis after him.
The Jayne Mansfield movie It Happened in Athens was heavily based on Louis and his marathon triumph. Apparently Mansfield had read his story and was a fan. “Γίνομαι Λούης,” is a Greek expression which is still used to this day, and translates as “I am becοming Louis,” and is used when someone wants to say he has tο rush and then disappears by running fast.
In 2012, a new style of Vibram FiveFingers called the Spyridon LS was launched in honor of Louis, but the significance of his victory and his legacy is greater than any movie or pair of sports shoes inspired by him, as John MacAloon, a University of Chicago professor, Coubertin’s biographer, and an authority on the Olympic Games, says,
Without Louis, the Athens Games would have no epic hero, no master symbol to condense and express so richly so many ideological, sociological, and historical themes. The modern Olympic Games would have been less likely to survive the traumas of the next twelve years if it wasn’t for the symbolic capital of those ‘indescribable’ and ‘unforgettable’ moments in the Panathenaic Stadium when Louis entered it on April 10, 1896.
And MacAloon continues by reminding us of the importance of Louis’s triumph:
While it is not clear how thoroughly he recognized it, Coubertin had found his most potent ally in the peasant from Marousi. Indeed, it may be fairly said of Louis that, more than any man but Coubertin, he created the modern Olympic Games.
Last but not least, with a total population of 2,433,802 back in 1896, Greece won an impressive 46 medals, more than any other participating nation at the first Olympics. It still holds the world record for most medals per capita in a single Olympic Games, with one medal for every 52,908 citizens.
Where Did We Get This Stuff? Here Are Our Sources
“Marathon cup from 1896 sets Olympics auction record.” Reuters. Mike Collett-White. 2012.
The Olympic Stadium of Athens “Spyros Louis.” Wikipedia.
“It Happened in Athens.” (Film). 1962.
“The Feel Good Story of the First Modern Olympic Superstar.” Ozy. Theodore Karasavvas. 2016.