This is the title of a book by Aymeric Mantoux which was published last month. It means that de Coubertin is not the person who invented the Olympic Games. To tell the truth, I find the title somewhat awkward. After all, nobody (not even de Coubertin himself!) claims that he was the one who had the idea of the Olympic Games. The title that de Coubertin's hagiographers grant to the baron is that of the "renovator", being the one who revived the Olympics after a 15-century hiatus.
First, let us get the facts straight. De Coubertin was not the first to have the idea to revive the ancient Games. There have been several attempts prior to his but none turned up to be viable. I am now convinced that, one day, I should tell the real story of how the modern Olympics came to be. How de Coubertin, aiming at introducing physical education in the french educational system, stumbled upon the idea and was lucky enough to have the support of Greece (something that he spurned once he did not need it anymore) going on to spend his life rewriting history and pretending that he singlehandedly revived the Games. But you have to give it to him, by hook or by crook, he managed to prevail and make the modern Olympics durable.
I read the book and I must say that I did not learn much. There is not much that was not known before. De Coubertin was an aristocrat of his time with deeply ingrained racist beliefs. He tried to follow a military career but he failed his admission exams at the Saint-Cyr officers' school. (In his "mémoires" de Coubertin maintains that he did not present himself at the oral part of the exams due to a last-moment change of mood but the St. Cyr archives tell a different story). We know that he usurped the phrase "citius, altius, fortius", from the dominical preacher Henri Didon and used it as the motto of the IOC. And the famous phrase "the important thing in the Olympic Games is not so much the winning but taking part" was filched from Mgr. Ethelbert Talbot. (This sentence is in stark contrast with the ancient greek attitude towards competition, where the important thing was victory. If de Coubertin was the hellenist he pretended to be, he would never had adopted such a maxim).
I have written on several occasions on de Coubertin's misogynism. It certainly goes hand in hand with his racist beliefs about the superiority of the white race. Where things become interesting in Mantoux's monograph is concerning the relations of de Coubertin with the nazi Germany and Hitler in person. The letter below was discovered in the ex-DDR archives by the german historian Hans Joachim Teichler (author of the book "Internationale Sportpolitik im Dritten Reich", alas in german).
The letter, written in March 1937, addresses Hitler as "excellency" (which reminds me that an IOC president, J.A. Samaranch, insisted that he be addressed as "excellency") and expresses his gratitude to the german regime for their contribution to his jubilee in the promotion of sports (I don't how de Coubertin was counting the 50 years necessary for a jubilee). He goes on to accept the invitation to visit Germany in spring, as soon as his health improves. De Coubertin never made this trip to Germany: he passed away in 1937. In fact, he did not even attend the Berlin Games, but two years before he visited upon invitation the site of the Winter Games in Garmisch-Partenkirchen. And with de Coubertin's benediction, Garmisch-Partenkirchen was selected again for the 1940 Winter Olympics.
The links of de Coubertin to the nazi regime are numerous. In 1935 de Coubertin delivered a speech on the german radio on the philosophy of the Olympism, insisting on his aristocratic, elitist, religious aspects aiming at the "triumph of the will". He obtained financial support of 10000 marks from the german government (roughly 100000 euros in today's value), being destitute at the time, upon order of Hitler himself. The square at the south entrance of the Berlin olympic stadium was named Square P. de Coubertin. An Institute for Olympic Studies was planned following discussions between de Coubertin and H. Esser, vice-president of the Reich (but following de Coubertin's demise and the War the project was shelved). De Coubertin was proposed by the nazi government for the Peace Nobel Prize. (That was meant to counter the proposal of C. von Ossietzky, an opponent of the nazi regime who was held in a concentration camp. To no avail. It was Ossietzky and not de Coubertin who obtained the Nobel).
The main contribution of the book is to remind everybody that de Coubertin was, at best, an ambiguous person, lest we forget the important facts, seized by an olympic exuberance.
He was never honoured by the French State, he was never awarded a medal (although his family maintains that it was the baron who refused all decorations). On two occasions, overzealous de Coubertin admirers proposed that his remains be buried to the Panthéon where "A grateful nation honours its great men".
The first was on the occasion of the 1968, Grenoble, Winter Games, when the french member of the IOC, J. de Beaumont, suggested this to de Gaulle. The latter refused diplomatically saying the "that the idea is interesting, but de Coubertin is hardly Jean Moulin" (a leader of the Résistance who was interred in the Panthéon in 1964).
The second proposal is a more recent one by writer (academician) E. Orsenna and ex-olympic champion (and member of the IOC) G. Drut. One of their arguments that I find really pathetic is the one based on women's right to vote. Orsenna points out that de Coubertin granted women the right to participate in the Olympics 20 years before they acquired the right to vote. Alas, everything is wrong in this statement. As I explained in great detail in my series "the long and arduous road of women to the Olympics" de Coubertin never accepted the presence of women in the Olympics. They entered the 1900 Games because the baron did not have a saying. He fought tooth and nail their presence during the 25+ years of his presidency at the IOC. The number of women participating in the Games started increasing only after de Coubertin stepped down. And to cap it all, it's not because France had a retrograde attitude towards women, who started to be able to vote only after 1944, that this is a universal truth. New Zealand had granted voting rights to women even before the first Olympics. Fortunately, E. Macron refused the proposal, just like de Gaulle half a century before.
On June 23rd, the IOC president, T. Bach gave a talk in a ceremony organised in the Sorbonne, in Paris, where de Coubertin staged his "olympic" conference in 1894. The president of the French Republic and the Sports Minister had already announced that they would not attend. A french journalist summarised aptly the (french) attitude towards de Coubertin during the Paris Games:
"The important is to participate and not mention his name"
No comments:
Post a Comment