TAll institutions, public and private, like to write their own history based on holy founders, glorified moments and others shamefully forgotten. The International Olympic Committee (IOC) does not deviate from this rule to forge its own legend. We can even say that he excels at it, to the point of complicating the task of professional historians.
To tell the truth, this idea of setting a story “true” said “Olympic movement” dates back to Pierre de Coubertin when he published his Twenty-one year campaignin 1909, then his Olympic Memoriesin 1931, six years after his resignation from the IOC.
Written in an alert and skilful manner, these two works grant Coubertin a central place in the development of sports in France and Olympics in the world, while reducing to second place other equally decisive actors, whom historians do not discover that by crossing documents with other archives.
Like the formidable propagandist that Coubertin was, it must be recognized that the IOC has become an expert in historiographic marketing since the presidency of Juan Antonio Samaranch (1980-2001).
In 1982, an Olympic studies center was inaugurated in Lausanne (Switzerland) to provide incomparable access to the impressive collection of archives and specialized works. The IOC even grants generous research grants, but without forgetting to set the framework for the work to be carried out.
Never about politics or money
Since the 1980s, this center has also used numerous officially certified historiographers to write commemorative books, and it has dubbed the stories ” fabulous “ and revisited biographies of Coubertin published by sports journalists and scholars around the world. We then end up with a funny Olympic story where there is never a question of politics or money.
For example, such an anti-Semitic letter from Coubertin is absent from the catalog of his autographs, just as his declaration in favor of Adolf Hitler disappears from his well-named “selected texts”. The links of a significant number of IOC members with the dictatorships of the 20th centurye and XXIe centuries have passed into silence. Everything happens as if the Olympic institution embodied the adage that appeared in the 1920s, according to which “we don’t mix sport and politics”.
This formula initially served the interests of those who refused any democratic control and who used the sports management to do politics differently. We could expect a counterpoint from former IOC executives and employees, but a draconian confidentiality clause allows you to anticipate any unaligned words.
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