Pierre Frédy, Baron de Coubertin, was born in Paris in 1863. His family originated in Normandy where he spent many of his summers in the family Château de Mirville, near Le Havre. He refused the military career planned for him by his family, as well as renouncing a promising political career. By the age of 24 he had already decided the aim of his life: he would help bring back the noble spirit of France by reforming its old-fashioned and unimaginative education system. Coubertin, whose father was an artist and mother a musician, was raised in cultivated and aristocratic surroundings. He had always been deeply interested in questions of education. For him, education was the key to the future of society, and he sought the means to make France rise once more after its defeat in the war in 1870.
Coubertin was a very active sportsman and practiced the sports of boxing, fencing, horse-riding and rowing. He was convinced that sport was the springboard for moral energy and he defended his idea with rare tenacity. It was this conviction that led him to announce at the age of 31 that he wanted to revive the Olympic Games. He made this announcement in a meeting at the Union of French Societies of Athletic Sports (USFSA), for which he was Secretary General. No one really believed him and his statement was greeted with little enthusiasm.
参考资料：http://www.secondsky.com/bbs/archiver/?tid-470.html