Pal Schmitt, one of the International Olympic Committee's (IOC) most distinguished and longest serving members - 33 years and counting - hasn't got a good word to say for Theodosius I.

The latter got a dishonourable mention in the address Schmitt gave to a group  of up-and-coming sports administrators last week at the Sport Event Management and Organisation Seminar hosted in Tokyo by the Tsukuba International Academy for Sport Studies (TIAS) with the assistance of the International Academy of Sport Science and Technology (AISTS) Mastering Sport group.

As well he might. For this was the Greek ruler who was said to have decided to forbid the ancient Olympics which had been running in Olympia from 776 to 393 BC.

Bloody politicians. That said, Schmitt is also a politician, having served from 2010 to 2012 as President of Hungary, for whom he competed at three Olympics from 1968, winning a team epee gold medal in fencing at the first two.

Here then is a man who has pretty much done it all. When Schmitt speaks, his words carry weight. And right now the 72-year-old former chairman of the IOC's Sport and Environment Commission is speaking about, in his own phrase,"diminishing expectations".

Pal Schmitt, long-serving IOC member, is stressing that a revision of expectations is now necessary for the health of the Olympic Movement ©AFP/Getty Images

By way of establishing his point, Schmitt rehearsed the numbers involved in the 1896 Athens Games, the first modern Olympics, compared to the most recent Summer Games in London.

"The 1896 Games involved 13 countries, 248 athletes, 45 medals and nine sports," Schmitt said. "London 2012 involved 205 countries, 10,500 athletes, 303 gold medals, and 27 sports."

The trend was obvious simply by comparing the stats at the Tokyo 1964 Games with the predicted figures for Tokyo 2020:  "Tokyo '64 involved 117 countries, 5,700 athletes, 22 sports and 163 medals," Schmitt said. "Tokyo 2020 will involve 205 countries, 10,500 athletes, 28 sports and 303 medals.

"Gigantism - overgrowing - is a danger always," Schmitt added. "You cannot give out 600 gold medals, you cannot have 20,000 athletes at the Games. No Olympic Village could cope.

"After the 2000 Sydney Games – no more. This is the size now that is manageable, as we see in Athens [2004], London, Rio, [2016] Tokyo."

More than anything else, this was the keynote of Schmitt's speech.

He maintained his theme when asked about the Youth Olympic Games, which began in Singapore in 2010 and have just had an all-dancing, all-singing incarnation in Nanjing this year.

"So far the Youth Olympic Games has proved to be successful," Schmitt said. "I cannot say the gigantic Opening and Closing Ceremony so far can continue because it is extremely expensive, but the next Games will be in Argentina, where there will be no such luxury or fiesta in the Opening and Closing ceremonies but it will certainly be organised nicely."

Schmitt began his competitive career as a modern pentathlete before deciding his athletic prowess could best be expressed through just one of the event's five disciplines.

But he was robust in his refusal to countenance the suggestion floated last year by the President of the International Modern Pentathlon Union (UIPM), Dr Klaus Schormann, that this disparate sport should seek in future to run its five events over five hours in a dedicated stadium.

In Rio 2016, modern pentathlon is scheduled to take place at the Deodoro Complex over two days. Tokyo 2020 meanwhile has scheduled the modern pentathlon fencing to take place at Musashino Forest Sport Centre, with the other four disciplines being hosted by the Tokyo Stadium.

"Five sports in five hours in one stadium – that is modern pentathlon's concept, but it is not compulsory," Schmitt said. "We don't need a stadium for modern pentathlon. We want to keep it on the Olympic programme even if it's not so easy as only 40-50 countries regularly practise Modern Pentathlon out of 205 - 40-50 countries is nothing.

"Modern pentathlon has to spread out its participation. We don't need a special facility for it. Modern pentathlon never has more than 4,000 or 5,000 spectators. You don't go to see swimming as it has no sense for other people - you have to swim 200 metres and you cannot really measure who is the best. It is difficult for spectators.

"I am a lover of modern pentathlon, but I must tell you, if they are misplaced if they want a huge stadium."

The women compete at London 2012 during the women's modern pentathlon, a sport that must alter itself to ensure its place within the Olympic programme, warns Pal Schmitt
©Getty Images

Schmitt held to the same theme when asked to comment upon the diminishing number of cities in the hunt for the 2022 Winter Games - following Oslo's sudden decision to withdraw, those Games are now destined either for Beijing or Almaty.

"The 2022 Winter Games is a bit difficult," Schmitt said. "Even Oslo, one of the richest countries in the world, has voted in Parliament to withdraw. So now we have two candidates - we will see."

Schmitt sees the reluctance of some cities to persist with their Olympic ambitions as a clear message to the Olympic Movement to reassess some of its assumptions.

"We have to diminish our expectations," he said. "The last four summer Olympics have been given to cities of 10 million inhabitants or more. How about other cities in Europe, or South America? Normal sized cities? We have to give a chance to smaller cities, we have to care about our expectations and fulfil smaller countries' requirements.

"At the moment the bidding procedure is quite complicated. Bidding cities have to fulfil around 11 different requirements. But the other expectations have to be slowed down. They are not that important. For instance, we force Organising Committees to have a cultural programme.

"Somehow we have to either help them more financially, or we have to say that only existing facilities can be used, for instance the Olympic Vlllage should be a university or military campus. No more luxury. We have to bring lower expectations of Opening and Closing Ceremonies. There are a lot of ways to find the best way to have more and more cities taking this challenge of having the Games."

Looking ahead to the Extraordinary Session of the IOC scheduled for Monaco on December 8 and 9 to discuss potentially radical changes to the Olympic Movement as proposed by the IOC President Thomas Bach as part of the Olympic Agenda 2020 proposal, Schmitt added: "I cannot give the answer now but after December we will have recommendations for smaller countries to participate."

Not that any of the foregoing is remotely indicative of the idea that idealism should be diminished.

"I was the only Head of State in the world who was an Olympic champion - quite a message. So when I spoke in the United Nations they know I come from a background of sport," Schmitt said.

Hungary has introduced a compulsory hour's PE into its school curriculum ©Getty Images

"Last year we decided we don't want to have champions all that much. The most important is that kids in Hungary have access to sport. So we say there must be PE every day in our schools. It is extremely difficult, every day, to fit PE in with maths, history and grammar. Some people say these subjects are more important than PE, that you can run whenever you want. But we have decided.

"So for basic school, for kids from six to 14, every day there is one hour compulsory PE. We need more facilities, but we will do it. This is the chance to shape Hungarian children. Hungary is the only country in Europe that has every day physical education. It is also part of our project that every city with over 50,000 inhabitants must have swimming pools.

"The Government is making a huge effort to make sports accessible. We are not dreaming gold medals. We are dreaming Hungarian kids who will enjoy sport and use it in their life to face all kinds of challenge."

Mike Rowbottom, one of Britain's most talented sportswriters, covered the London 2012 Olympics and Paralympics as chief feature writer for insidethegames, having covered the previous five summer Games, and four winter Games, for The Independent. He has worked for the Daily Mail, The Times, The Observer, The Sunday Correspondent and The Guardian. To follow him on Twitter click here.