The Gallery of Shame (bonus track of "the long and arduous road of women to the Olympics")

Women had to fight tooth and nail in order to be admitted into the world of sports. Along the way they met with a ferocious opposition by the men who were managing sports at an international level. Those men did whatever was possible, first to thwart the women's efforts and, when they realised that this was not possible any more, by embracing and smothering. Those men are considered and venerated as the founding fathers of the modern sports movement. Lest the world forgets their scurrilous behaviour, I will present their portraits in the Gallery of Shame.  

Honour to whom honour is due, and thus we cannot start with anybody other than the famous baron, the one who managed, with a little help from his friends (and from his enemies as well), to keep women out of the Olympics for years and years (it depends on how you count). I have written time and again on de Coubertin and his deeply aristocratic, pseudo-elitist, sexist, racist attitude. Hadn't it been for the efforts of Mme Milliat, it is not clear when and how women would have been allowed to compete in athletics. And I do not think that it is a coincidence that a women's athletics program (a highly curtailed, and officially announced as an experimental one) was included in the Olympics only after de Coubertin had stepped down from the president's position.

Sullivan and the letter by I. Schnall

Speaking of de Coubertin's enemies it is impossible not to mention James E. Sullivan. He was one of the founders of the USA Amateur Athletic Union. One of the most influential people in the early Olympic movement, he was the main organiser of the 1904 Olympics. The events around this organisation, moving the venue out from Chicago and ignoring the IOC and de Coubertin himself, sparked the enmity between the two men. But on one point the two did totally agree: anti-feminism. For Sullivan women had nothing to do in the Olympics and, while in the Paris 1900 Olympics some sports had been open to women, in St. Louis the only feminine presence was in US archery championship (which was a posteriori promoted to olympic event). While the aquatic sports (swimming and diving) were open to women in the 1912 Olympics, Sullivan, on behalf of the USOC, forbade american women to participate, in a competition where Ida Schnall could have won a medal in diving. Fortunately he was not able to do much more harm since he died two years later. 

I don't think there is photo of de Coubertin with Hitler

but there definitely is one of Baillet-Latour with the Führer

When the baron bowed out he was replaced by a count (and the rise in nobility titles would continue, since many years later a marquess would become president of the IOC). Count Henri Baillet-Latour was not only an admirer of Hitler but also, you guessed it, an anti-feminist. Already the inclusion of women's athletics events in the Amsterdam, 1928, had met with great resistance, but following the whole fabrication around the 800 m  Baillet-Latour proposed simply the “exclusion of women’s events entirely from the Games". He argued against the participation of women in the traditionally "masculine" sports. He reiterated the proposal in 1930, supporting only women’s (limited) participation in the so-called "aesthetic" sports. And after he was down-voted, he re-attacked in 1931 calling for the removal of women's sports, in their entirety, from the Olympic Games. Fortunately, on every occasion, the IOC members did not follow the president's recommendations.

I don't know if one of the hands in the nazi salute is that of Baillet-Latour

but the wreaths during his funeral are definitely nazi

The case of Sigfrid Edstrom is much more complex. Edstrom was a very subtle man and, although also not favourable towards women's sports, he managed to navigate cleverly in the troubled olympic milieu. In 1913 he created the International Amateur Athletics Federation (IAAF, today known as World Athletics). For this he had to deal with de Coubertin who was, at the beginning, not favourable at all to the idea. Still, Edstrom managed to convince him assuring the baron that the new federation would not contest or interfere with the leadership of the IOC and that the Olympic Games would serve as world championships for athletics. (It took 70 years to change this!). Edstrom understood early enough that women's athletics could not be ignored and thus in 1924 women became officially, through the FSFI (Fédération Sportive Féminine Internationale), part of the IAAF. From the negotiations between the IAAF and the IOC it becomes obvious that the expansion of athletics for women at the international level ultimately was determined and shaped by the "goodwill" and interests of men. Edstrom, through lobbying for acceptance of women's sport within the IAAF and the IOC, did in fact succeed in making the FSFI disappear. His disdain for the FSFI is clear in his writings (here, from a letter to A. Brundage): "I suppose you know that Mme. Milliat's federation has caused us so much trouble that we certainly have no interest at all to support it. We should like the whole thing to disappear from the surface of the earth". By accepting women as a part of the IAAF Edstrom could maintain a "watchful eye" over the athletics activities allowed to women. After the demise of Baillet-Latour, Edstrom became the fourth president of the IOC.

Edstrom with de Coubertin (left) and Brundage (right)

Edstrom was succeeded in the presidency of the IOC by A. Brundage in 1952. (David Burghley, marquess of Exeter, and 1928 gold medalist in the 400 m hurdles had assumed the presidency of the IOC already in 1946. By the way it was Burghley who presented the medals for the 200 m in the Mexico, 1968, Olympics, and can be seen in the photo next to Smith, Norman and Carlos). I have devoted a whole post to A. Brundage. I cannot think of anybody with a more negative presence in the world of sport. He was the one who, through his report, convinced the US not to boycott the 1936, Nazi, Olympics. He was the one who refused to re-habilitate J. Thorpe (definitely out of spite, since Thorpe was a million times better athlete than Brundage). He was the one who refused to recognise the 1906 Intercalated Games as Olympic ones. He was the one who, sticking to antiquated amateur-ship rules, hindered the modernisation of sports during decades. He was the one who, after the tragic 1972, Munich events, dared to compare, in his talk, the massacre of the Israeli team to the exclusion of Rhodesia from the Games. I could go on and on about Brundage but, here, it is interesting to focus on his attitude towards women's athletics. When he became president of the AAU it was too late: it had already been voted "to promote, control, and provide competitions for women in track and field". In 1930 Brundage was elected to the IAAF's "Committee on Women's Sport". His contempt for female participation in sport during the early 1930's was well hidden. Although, in his own words, "not enthusiastic on the subject" he realised that women's participation was inevitable and thus it needed to be strictly supervised by qualified individuals, namely men. His negative view for women's sport is visible through his writings. In 1932 he wrote: "Maybe the Greeks were right after all. You know the ancient Greeks kept women out of their athletic games. They wouldn't even let them on the sidelines. I'm not sure but they were right". And again in 1949: "I think it is quite well known that I am lukewarm on most of the events for women for a number of reasons which I will not bother to expound because I probably will be out- voted anyway. I think women's events should be confined to those appropriate for women; swimming, tennis, figure skating and fencing but certainly not shot putting". When he became president of the IOC, in 1952, he had to deal with an issue that keeps rearing its ugly head till today, namely the reduction of the olympic program. And Brundage's proposal (well, one of them) was "to eliminate all events for women". Although that did not pass, the 1953 decision was not to eliminate women from the Games but to only let them compete in "suitable" sports. In 1957 Brundage wrote: "there is still a well grounded protest against events which are not truly feminine, like putting a shot, or those too strenuous for most of the opposite sex, such as distance runs". Brundage is an excellent example of how men used their political power and personal stature within international sport circles to define, control, and manipulate women's sport participation. 

All these persons, during their tenure at the highest sports instances, perpetuated the anachronistic ideals of women as passive, non-physical beings and tried to shape the growing women's sports movement to fit within their personal agendas. Fortunately women are tenacious beings and in the end they prevailed. And the gentlemen who tried to stifle the women's sports movement gained a prominent place in my Gallery of Shame.