Politique Internationale — As Paris and France prepare to host the 2024 Olympic and Paralympic Games, what does Pierre de Coubertin, the creator of the modern Olympic Games more than 120 years ago, represent to you?
Armand de Rendinger — For me, Pierre de Coubertin is first and foremost a legacy. He is the founding father of a Charter which lists the rules and behaviours that apply to any individual and any entity claiming to be part of Olympism and of a lasting structure for Olympic governance.
He is also the initiator of a structured international Olympic movement which, after having almost disappeared for lack of income in the middle of the last century, has been able to adapt to its era, in particular by allowing professional athletes to participate in the Olympic Games, and by marketing all of its assets, namely its Olympic emblems and rings.
An ardent promoter of the French language, he made French and English the official languages of the institutions of the Olympic movement, granting our language a privileged status that it has retained to this day. Symbolic for some, this heritage is claimed and defended in a number of cultural spheres far beyond the framework of the Francophone world.
Finally, Coubertin laid the foundations of an IOC which, over time, has become the apex institution for the international sports movement and is today considered by the United Nations and UNESCO as an essential partner in the promotion of peace in the world, and of education for youth.
This multi-faceted reality has its roots in the efforts undertaken by Coubertin at the national and international level to promote his vision of sport and Olympic values, some of which were far removed from the educational doctrines advocated at the time.
Thanks to his taste for writing, he left us more than 30 works, 15,000 pages of writings, around fifty brochures and more than 1,200 listed articles ... a wealth of information for historians. Reading these archives is undoubtedly the best way to understand what this man, the founder of a new order as applied to the economy of sport, was and what he still represents today.
P. I. — What are the Olympic values he constantly promoted?
A. de R. — For Coubertin and his supporters, the Olympic values emerge with key human values which are excellence, respect for others, discipline, universalism, fraternity and joy.
In his Charter, he insists on the necessary independence of the Olympic movement vis-à-vis politics and on the refusal to allow any State involvement in its management. There is no denying the fact that today that we are a long way from this principle, as politics is everywhere: as much in the choice of organizing countries, which do not always meet the criteria required in terms of freedoms and inclusion of minorities, as in State contributions to financing of the Olympic movement. Sport has become a powerful instrument of soft power, and not just for emerging countries.
P. I. — In recent years, more controversial aspects of his personality have begun to emerge. He has been accused, in particular, of being ‘reactionary’ …
A. de R. — Because in order to impose his convictions with regard to sport, he relied on the theories that were current and defended by certain scientific and political powers of his time? You have to take into account the fact that the notion of competition and the need to excel were not accepted by supporters of sports education in schools, which sought to be egalitarian and was therefore limited to gymnastics. Making reference to scientific studies to argue that man cannot live healthily and flourish without having been educated in a spirit of competition can indeed be challenged and shock some well-meaning souls today.
For Coubertin, the need to confront others is innate in human beings and has always existed. It is therefore necessary to contain it, according to the rules found in the current Olympic Charter. Probably not reactionary, then, but a political activist certainly, just like the IOC as an actor magnifying the Olympic champion and increasing its diplomatic efforts for education and peace.
P. I. — He has also been called a colonialist and a racist …
A. de R. — Because he said that he was proud to be a ‘fanatical colonist’, that he saw in sport an excellent means of ‘disciplining the natives’ and that ‘the latter had the prerogative of physical strength and it was up to Western man to teach them how to use it’? Indeed, it is difficult for supporters of the notion of the non-existence of races or the absence of differences between them to accept such comments, especially when they are accompanied by declarations taken up by certain elites in France’s Third Republic, such as ‘the races are of different value and all others must pay allegiance to the white race, whose essence is superior’.
Whether taken out of context or not, such assertions send a shiver down the spine! Did Coubertin mean that it was essential to ‘include’ the natives, like their peers, in our mold of European education, allowing them to better display their innate qualities? If this were the case, this form of generosity, or reaching out to another who is different, would indeed be racism, strictly speaking. Isn’t this the same reproach that is sometimes leveled at the IOC, said to be reliant on officials of essentially European or Anglo-Saxon origin? It is unfortunate that even today, despite progress made with regard to inclusion, we find in the differentiated treatment reserved for the Paralympic Games compared to the Olympic Games the hints of theories that were current in the time of Coubertin.
Only seven members of the IOC, among the hundred that compose it, showed up at the opening ceremony of the Paralympic Games in Rio de Janeiro in Brazil on September 7, 2016. A single page in the newspaper L’Équipe devoted to the results of the latter, against more than sixteen pages relating the daily exploits of the athletes of the Olympic Games. The Paralympic Games in Tokyo in 2021 or Beijing in 2022, were, apart from the quality of the television broadcasts, no better off than the previous ones.
Despite all the fine words and promises, segregation between able-bodied and disabled athletes persists. When will we see the promised Olympic unity? When will there be balanced and equal treatment for everyone’s achievements? It is not by referring to Coubertin and to the theories that some think should be attributed to him that the solution will be found; and all the more so since within the Olympic movement there are major currents of influence that oppose any unification of the Olympic Games and the Paralympic Games into a single event, citing logistical and even economic difficulties. And yet, there is nothing preventing a reduction in the enormous size of the Olympic Games in order to integrate the Paralympics. As long as the temporal separation of these two events is maintained, you can bet that the complete integration of disabled athletes will only be achieved slowly.
P. I. — He has been called a misogynist …
A. de R. — Because he fiercely opposed women’s participation in the Olympics? Coubertin wrote of women’s sport that it was ‘impractical, uninteresting, unsightly and, we are not afraid to say, incorrect’! If that’s not misogyny, it looks a lot like it ... Obviously he was not campaigning for women to be considered equal to men by allowing them to share the same duties and the same rights in a shared community. But in this he was only following the spirit of the times.
Even today, women are a minority within the IOC (less than 40%) and in the governing bodies of world sport. Is this under- representation due to the conditions of the IOC’s creation? Could it be the absence of mixed competitions, except in horse riding, that has encouraged this discrimination, since for physical and morphological reasons it would be pointless to have women and men compete on equal terms in the same sporting event?
In any case, and because the subject deserves it, we should seek the opinion of the main interested parties, starting with three members of the IOC: the American Anita DeFrantz, the Moroccan Nawal El Moutawakel and the ambitious Russian pole vault champion Yelena Ysinbayeva. Not to mention the former member of the IOC, particularly active in the Olympic world, the German Claudia Bokel.
In the meantime, by the 2012 London Olympics, we had come a long way from the fierce opposition displayed by Coubertin, even if the first women were admitted to the Olympics in Paris in 1924. Gender equality among athletes participating in the Games has become a virtual obligation and a reality.
P. I. — That’s not all: Coubertin has also attracted the labels of nationalist, militarist and warmonger. Where in your opinion does this accusation come from?
A. de R. — Because he reiterated at the beginning of the last century that competitive sport and physical activity would also have the virtue of strengthening citizens’ ability to fight wars and, consequently, to take their revenge against the Prussian enemy? Because the practice of sport, as Coubertin envisaged it, would therefore be a new weapon for going to war in 1914 and more easily defeating this hereditary rival, so well trained to exert itself and therefore to succeed?
Because he was a disappointed patriot, impatient to recover our dear provinces of Alsace and Lorraine? Because his father- in-law, the Alsatian Gustave Rothan, had been Napoleon III’s plenipotentiary minister in the German countries? Certainly, he was suspected of having a certain admiration for the Prussian order. Worse: he openly welcomed the German government’s good preparation of the Berlin Games and thanked Adolf Hitler for having organized and celebrated them so well. To this end, he recorded a message which was read at the closing ceremony of the Games and which said in substance: ‘May the German people and their leader be thanked for what they have just accomplished.’
That was too much for some historians, who did not hesitate to see in him a flatterer of the Nazi regime. Let’s be careful not to give substance to this sort of judgment, which is as peremptory and far-fetched as it is insulting.
We attribute a lot to Coubertin and above all, we often take statements he is meant to have made, and positions he is meant to have taken, out of context. If he was indeed this ‘dubious’ and reactionary character that some wise sociologists and learned historians see him as, one wonders why he has received such posthumous recognition.
P. I. — You seem to waver between criticism and intellectual curiosity when it comes to Coubertin. How, beyond your own career as an athlete, did you get interested in this character?
A. de R. — From reading his works and taking into account the context in which he lived, it would be as ridiculous and stupid for me to praise Pierre de Coubertin as it would be to condemn him. He was the major player in the revival of the Olympic Games after they lay dormant for more than fifteen centuries. He is the creator of an Olympic institution, an instrument of peace and education, which he wanted to be independent, autonomous, international, universal and where the principle of the selection of individuals and their co-opting was, in his opinion, the best guarantee of sound sports governance. For that alone, Baron Pierre de Coubertin deserves a respectful and objective look at his balance sheet.
P. I. — When it comes to Coubertin, can we still talk about a legacy to be managed and, above all, to be developed?
A. de R. — Absolutely. Coubertin was a self-confident and obstinate man who did everything possible to achieve his ends. Humanist, researcher, but with questionable scientific claims, Hellenist, passionate about politics and literature, pedagogue, Christian, social-minded Catholic. Although he rallied to the republic of Ferry, Gambetta and Carnot, his spirit was more monarchist than republican, more elitist than democratic.
His studies in political science had not erased his original taste for a military career. He was anti-Dreyfusard, not out of anti- Semitism, but out of respect for military order.
And, of course, he was a complete sportsman. During his school stays in Great Britain, he had taken a liking to the regular practice of sports, such as boxing, fencing, rowing, shooting and horse riding. Coubertin was in a way a modern-day pentathlete!
In short, he was convinced of the rectitude of his vision of sport and Olympism. He believed anyone could join the elite through the practice of sport and through exertion. Here again, we are a long way from the caricature of a talented genius, an Olympic prophet or a reactionary with questionable convictions and interests.
For me, he is above all a cultured, curious man of a certain era who had forged a conception of modern Olympism and its benefits. This in itself deserves respect, the more so since more than a century later his work, however venerated or contested it may be, has acquired a unique dimension in economic and media terms that was scarcely imaginable at the time it was conceived.
P. I. — If I follow you correctly, Coubertin, prisoner of the prejudices of his time and his milieu, was not a visionary, just a passionate man who was driven by an unshakable faith in the usefulness of sport ...
A. de R. — In reality, he was not this revolutionary thinker preparing the advent of a new world, as his admirers like to portray him. But the fact remains that he bequeathed to his successors a magnificent instrument of education and sports governance.
Coubertin marked a break; he knew how to create a powerful movement and gave it the necessary tools to manage itself. This movement is founded on virtues that for some are immutable and essential. But what value and what sustainability would this legacy have if it were not accompanied by constant reflection about the society of the future – a society in which sport and Olympism would have an integral role? This is undoubtedly the greatest challenge that the IOC and its president will have to take up in the years to come.