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500 Drachmes Spyros Louis
| Issuer | Bank of Greece |
|---|---|
| Year | 2000 |
| Type | Commemorative circulation coin |
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| Reverse description | Full-length portrait of Spyros Louis, winner of the marathon at the 1896 Athens Olympic Games, depicted standing in traditional Greek national costume (fustanella), facing slightly left, with cypress trees in the left background and a trophy or column to the right. The date 2000 appears in the right field. The curved legend Ο ΟΛΥΜΠΙΟΝΙΚΗΣ ΣΠΥΡΟΣ ΛΟΥΗΣ (The Olympian Spyros Louis) runs along the lower periphery in Greek characters. |
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| Edge | Plain |
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| Additional information |
Issued to mark the Sydney Olympics, this coin commemorates Spyros Louis, the Greek water-carrier who won the marathon at the 1896 Athens Games — the first modern Olympics. His victory was treated as a matter of national pride at a moment when Greece was economically strained and politically anxious about its place in the modern world. Louis himself lived quietly in Amarousion for the rest of his life, famously declining most of the gifts and rewards pressed upon him by admirers.
The 2000 Sydney Games returned the marathon's symbolic weight to Greece when Konstantinos Kenteris won gold on the same track event a century after Louis.