By Our Foreign Correspondent
Paris, Aug 09 (IVC) The motto of the modern Olympic Games, “Faster, Higher, Stronger”, was coined by French friar Louis Henri Didon who fell with the friendship of the founder of the modern Olympic Games, Baron Pierre de Coubertin, five years before the 1896 Athens Games. The motto, originally formulated in Latin as “Citius, Altius, Fortius” was used before the modern Olympic movement at Saint Albert the Great School in Paris, where the Dominician friar was the principal.
Born in 1840, Didon entered the Rondeau Minor Seminary in Genoble, France, beginning at the age of nine and during his youth, he stood out for his ability as an athlete. After visiting the Carthusian monastery in Grenoble, he decided to follow a religious vocation and took the habit of the Order of Preachers (Dominicians) at the age of 16. Six years later, after a period of formation in Rome, he was ordained a priest at the age of 22.
Didon, soon gained fame as a preacher. During the brief Franco-Prussian War, which broke out in July 1870, he was a military chaplain and for a time was held as a prisoner. When he fell ill, he ended up as a refugee in Geneva, Switzerland, . From there he was sent to Marseille, where he resumed his sometimes controversial preaching activity, which led to his beint sent to Corsica in 1880.
