阅读理解 Pierre de Coubertin was born on January 1, 1863, in Paris, France．As a child of a noble family, he received a good education and developed a strong interest in literature and history．He refused the military career planned for him by his family, as well as giving up a political career in order to serve his people better． Coubertin was a very active sportsman and practiced the sports of boxing, fencing(击剑), horse-riding and rowing．He believed that sport was the tool for moral energy and he defended his idea with rare tenacity(坚韧)． His study of history made him wish the Olympics could still be held．He thought it was the ideal that everyone should try to reach．He was sure that bringing athletes together would make friendly relations between the countries．It was this idea that led him to announce at the age of 31 that he wanted to revive the Olympics． He made this announcement in a meeting at the Union of French Societies of Athletic Sports, for which he was Secretary General(秘书长)．No one really believed him and his statement was greeted with little enthusiasm．Coubertin, however, was not discouraged and on June 23, 1894 he founded the International Olympic Committee(IOC)in a ceremony held at the University of Sorbonne in Paris．Demetrius from Greece became the first president of the IOC． Two years later, in 1896, the first Olympic Games of the modern era was held in Athens．On that occasion Coubertin was elected the second president of the IOC and he remained president until 1925．Due to the 1st World War, Coubertin requested permission to establish the headquarters of the IOC in Lausanne, Switzerland, which was a neutral(中立的)country．Coubertin withdrew from the IOC in 1925 to devote himself to his pedagogical(教育学的)work, which he called his “unfinished symphony(交响乐)”． Coubertin suddenly died of a heart attack on September 2, 1937, in a park in Geneva, and thus his “symphony” remained unfinished．The city of Lausanne had decided to award him honorary citizenship(荣誉市民)of the city, but he died just before the ceremony． In accordance with Coubertin’s last wish he was buried in Lausanne, although his heart was buried separately in a monument near the ruins of ancient Olympia． | 
