Demetrios Bikelas as President of the Committee of the Olympic Games.
"When we came to the point of the unresolved question: where the first games of 1896 will take place, I asked to speak. I claimed the rights of Greece concerning the reinstitution of a Greek institution. It's true, according to Victor Hugo's expression, that all civilized peoples have Greece as their common grandmother, but for us she is our mother. We are a sort of uncles to the rest of nations. That's our advantage, if an advantage. That's hence the claim to inaugurate the reestablished Olympic Games on Greek soil." - Demetrios Bikelas