The first Balkan Games

Thanks to the Balkan Games, the Panathenaic Stadium is once again since the Olympic Games of 1896, filled with people. The initiative for their organizing is owed to the president of SEGAS Michalis Rinopoulos. He develops the idea during the Amsterdam Olympic Games and manages to get it accepted. PAO's pole vault athlete Argyris Karagiannis becomes the first Greek Balkan winner. Twenty-four national records are broken: 11 for Greece, 6 for Yugoslavia, 5 for Bulgaria, and 2 for Turkey. When they were next organized in 1931, Eleftherios Venizelos declared their commencement in Athens with the Turkish Prime Minister Ismet Inonu being present.