Pierre de Coubertin

Early life

Pierre de Frédy was born in Paris on 1 January 1863, into an aristocratic family. He was the fourth child of Charles Louis de Frédy, Baron de Coubertin, and Marie-Marcelle Gigault de Crisenoy. Family tradition held that the Frédy name had originally arrived in France during the early 15th century, and the first recorded title of nobility granted to the family was given by Louis XI in 1477 to an ancestor, also named Pierre de Frédy, but other branches of his family tree delved even further into French history. The annals of both sides of his family included nobles of various stations, military leaders and associates of kings and princes of France.

His father Charles was a staunch royalist and accomplished artist whose paintings were displayed and given prizes at the Parisian salon, at least in those years when he was not absent in protest of the rise to power of Napoleon III. His paintings often centered on themes related to the Catholic Church, classicism, and nobility, which reflected those things he thought most important. In a later semi-fictional autobiographical piece called Le Roman d'un rallié, Coubertin describes his relationship with both his mother and his father as having been somewhat strained during his childhood and adolescence. His memoirs elaborated further, describing as a pivotal moment his disappointment upon meeting Henri, Count of Chambord, whom the elder Coubertin believed to be the rightful king.

Coubertin grew up in a time of profound change in France – defeat in the Franco-Prussian War, the Paris Commune, and the establishment of the Third Republic – but while these events were the setting of his childhood, his school experiences were just as formative. In October 1874, his parents enrolled him in a new Jesuit school called Externat de la rue de Vienne, which was still under construction during his first five years there. While many of the school's attendees were day students, Coubertin boarded at the school under the supervision of a Jesuit priest, which his parents hoped would instill him with a strong moral and religious education. There, he was among the top three students in his class, and was an officer of the school's elite academy made up of its best and brightest. This suggests that despite his rebelliousness at home, Coubertin adapted well to the strict rigors of a Jesuit education. As was common in the French educational system at the time, Coubertin studied ancient Greece and Rome, which led to an appreciation of the Olympics at an early age.

As an aristocrat, Coubertin had a number of career paths from which to choose, including potentially prominent roles in the military or politics but he chose instead to pursue a career as an intellectual, studying and later writing on a broad range of topics, including education, history, literature and sociology.

Educational philosophy

The subject which he seems to have been most deeply interested in was education, and his study focused in particular on physical education and the role of sport in schooling. In 1883, at the age of twenty, he visited England for the first time and studied the program of physical education instituted under Thomas Arnold at the Rugby School. Coubertin admired Thomas Hughes's novel Tom Brown's School Days (published in 1857), which was set at the Rugby School. He referenced both the Rugby School and the novel as helping him to appreciate the role of athletics in education, saying that students who learn about fair play and morality on the sports field will be able to apply those lessons in various aspects of their adult life. He credited Arnold's methods with leading to the expansion of British power during the 19th century and advocated their use in French institutions. The inclusion of physical education in the curriculum of French schools would become an ongoing pursuit and passion of Coubertin.

Coubertin viewed Thomas Arnold as "one of the founders of athletic chivalry." However, the character-reforming influence of sport with which Coubertin was so impressed is more likely to have originated in the novel about Arnold's school rather than exclusively in the ideas of Arnold himself. Nonetheless, Coubertin was an enthusiast in need of a cause, and he found it in England and in Thomas Arnold. "Thomas Arnold, the leader and classic model of English educators," wrote Coubertin, "gave the precise formula for the role of athletics in education. The cause was quickly won. Playing fields sprang up all over England". He visited other English schools to see for himself. He described the results in a book, L'Éducation en Angleterre, which was published in Paris in 1888. The hero of his book is Thomas Arnold, and on his second visit in 1886, Coubertin reflected on Arnold's influence in the chapel at Rugby School.

What Coubertin saw on the playing fields of the English schools he visited was how "organised sport can create moral and social strength". Not only did organized games help to set the mind and body in equilibrium, it also prevented the time being wasted in other ways. First developed by the ancient Greeks, it was an approach to education that he felt the rest of the world had forgotten and to whose revival he was to dedicate the rest of his life.

As a historian and a thinker on education, Coubertin romanticized ancient Greece. Thus, when he began to develop his theory of physical education, he naturally looked to the example set by the Athenian idea of the gymnasium, a training facility that simultaneously encouraged physical and intellectual development. He saw in these gymnasia what he called a triple unity between old and young, between disciplines, and between different types of people, meaning between those whose work was theoretical and those whose work was practical. Coubertin advocated for these concepts, this triple unity, to be incorporated into schools.

Reviving the Olympic Games

Thomas Arnold, the head master of Rugby School, was an important influence on Coubertin's thoughts about education, but his meetings with William Penny Brookes also influenced his thinking about athletic competition to some extent. A trained physician, Brookes believed that the best way to prevent illness was through physical exercise. In 1850, he had initiated a local athletic competition that he referred to as "Meetings of the Olympian Class" at the Gaskell recreation ground at Much Wenlock, Shropshire. Along with the Liverpool Athletic Club, who began holding their own Olympic Festival in the 1860s, Brookes created a National Olympian Association which aimed to encourage such local competition in cities across Britain. These efforts were largely ignored by the British sporting establishment. Brookes also maintained communication with the government and sporting advocates in Greece, seeking a revival of the Olympic Games internationally under the auspices of the Greek government. There, the philanthropist cousins Evangelos and Konstantinos Zappas had used their wealth to fund Olympics within Greece, and paid for the restoration of the Panathinaiko Stadium that was later used during the 1896 Summer Olympics. The efforts of Brookes to encourage the internationalization of these games came to naught in his own lifetime before his death in 1895. However, Brookes did organize a national Olympic Games in London, at Crystal Palace, in 1866 and this was the first Olympics to resemble an Olympic Games to be held outside of Greece but while others had created Olympic contests within their countries, and broached the idea of international competition, it was Coubertin whose work would lead to the establishment of the International Olympic Committee and the organization of the first modern Olympic Games.

In 1888, Coubertin founded the Comité pour la Propagation des Exercises Physiques more well known as the Comité Jules Simon. Coubertin's earliest reference to the modern notion of Olympic Games criticizes the idea. The idea for reviving the Olympic Games as an international competition came to Coubertin in 1889, apparently independently of Brookes, and he spent the following five years organizing an international meeting of athletes and sports enthusiasts that might make it happen. In response to a newspaper appeal, Brookes wrote to Coubertin in 1890, and the two began an exchange of letters on education and sport. Although he was too old to attend the 1894 Congress, Brookes would continue to support Coubertin's efforts, most importantly by using his connections with the Greek government to seek its support in the endeavour. While Brookes' contribution to the revival of the Olympic Games was recognized in Britain at the time, Coubertin in his later writings largely neglected to mention the role the Englishman played in their development. He did mention the roles of Evangelis Zappas and his cousin Konstantinos Zappas, but drew a distinction between their founding of athletic Olympics and his own role in the creation of an international contest. However, Coubertin together with A. Mercatis, a close friend of Konstantinos, encouraged the Greek government to utilise part of Konstantinos' legacy to fund the 1896 Athens Olympic Games separately and in addition to the legacy of Evangelis Zappas that Konstantinos had been executor of. Moreover, George Averoff was invited by the Greek government to fund the second refurbishment of the Panathinaiko Stadium that had already been fully funded by Evangelis Zappas forty years earlier.

President of the International Olympic Committee

Coubertin became the second president of the IOC in 1896 with the Paris Olympics of 1900 being the first Games he oversaw as president. He made a major advancement for Olympic recognition by bringing hosting the 1906 Summer Olympics in Athens, which generated increased attention and participation at the Games. Since that time, the Olympic Games have come to be regarded as the world's foremost sports competition. Coubertin created the modern pentathlon for the 1912 Olympics, and subsequently stepped down from his IOC presidency after the 1924 Olympics in Paris, which proved much more successful than the first attempt in that city in 1900. He was succeeded as president, in 1925, by Belgian Henri de Baillet-Latour. During his tenure as president, Coubertin finally succeeded in having art competitions included as part of the Olympic Games, something he had advocated for since the founding of the IOC. Much of the funding for the IOC came from Coubertin personally. In fact, he depleted his wealth so much through these donations that he struggled financially at the end of his life.

Years later Coubertin came out of retirement to lend his prestige to assisting Berlin to land the 1936 games. In exchange, Germany nominated him for the Nobel Peace Prize. The 1935 winner, however, was the anti-Nazi Carl von Ossietzky.

Personal Olympic success

Coubertin won the gold medal for literature at the 1912 Summer Olympics for his poem "Ode to Sport," which was the first time the arts competitions were included at the Games. Coubertin entered the poem under the pseudonym of Georges Hohrod and M. Eschbach which were the names of villages close to his wife's place of birth. Below is an excerpt: O Sport, delight of the Gods, distillation of life! In the grey dingle of modern existence, restless with barren toil, you suddenly appeared like the shining messenger of vanished ages, those ages when humanity could smile.

Les Débrouillards

Following Francisco Amoros' ideas, De Coubertin developed a new type of utilitarian sport: "les débrouillards" (the "resourceful men") from 1900.

The first débrouillards season was organized in 1905/1906, and the program was wide: running, jumping, throwing, climbing, swimming, sword fighting, boxing, shooting, walking, horse riding, rowing, and cycling. (source: FFEPGV archives)

Scouting

In 1911, Pierre de Coubertin founded the interreligious scouting organization aka Éclaireurs Français (EF) in France, which later merged to form the Éclaireuses et Éclaireurs de France.

Personal life

In 1895, Pierre de Coubertin married Marie Rothan, the daughter of family friends. Their son Jacques (1896–1952) became sick after being in the sun too long when he was a little child. Their daughter Renée (1902–1968) suffered emotional disturbances and never married. Marie and Pierre tried to console themselves with two nephews, but they were killed at the front in World War I. Coubertin died of a heart attack in Geneva, Switzerland, on 2 September 1937 and was buried in Bois-de-Vaux Cemetery in Lausanne. Marie died in 1963.

One of the sports De Coubertin most liked was speed skating and skated himself during the time he lived in Lausanne at the lake.

At the 139th IOC Session around the 2022 Winter Olympics, French IOC member and Olympic gold medalist Guy Drut, informed the IOC of his proposal to have de Coubertin's remains reinterred at the Panthéon in time for the 2024 Summer Olympics. Drut stated that he had support from de Coubertin's family as well as French Academy member Érik Orsenna and had written to French President Emmanuel Macron. In response, IOC President Thomas Bach commented that he thought it was a "wonderful proposal" and "deserves to be successful", however, he doubted "the IOC could make any steps on this initiative which we appreciate considerably", yet wished him on behalf of the IOC "the best of success in getting this initiative to fruition." Drut announced that he had written to Macron "to propose the creation of a study commission for this project."

After his death, and according to his wish, his heart was taken to Olympia to rest in the memorial stele erected in his honor by the Greek government in 1937.

The stele is located in the Coubertin Grove of the International Olympic Academy. When the Olympic flame is lit in Olympia, the first torchbearer brings it to light the marble altar in the Coubertin Grove. The flame then goes onto Athens, and subsequently the host city.

Later life

Pierre de Coubertin was the last person to possess his family name. In the words of his biographer John MacAloon, "The last of his lineage, Pierre de Coubertin was the only member of it whose fame would outlive him."

Criticism

A number of scholars have criticized Coubertin's legacy. David C. Young believes that Coubertin's assertion that ancient Olympic athletes were amateurs was incorrect. The issue is the subject of scholarly debate. Young and others argue that the athletes of the ancient Games were professional, while opponents led by Pleket argue that the earliest Olympic athletes were in fact amateur, and that the Games only became professionalized after about 480 BC. Coubertin agreed with this latter view, and saw this professionalization as undercutting the morality of the competition.

Further, Young asserts that the effort to limit international competition to amateur athletes, which Coubertin was a part of, was in fact part of efforts to give the upper classes greater control over athletic competition, removing such control from the working classes. Coubertin may have played a role in such a movement, but his defenders argue that he did so unconscious of any class repercussions.

However, it is clear that Coubertin's romanticized vision of the ancient Olympic Games was fundamentally different from that described in the historical record. For example, his idea that participation is more important than winning ("L'important c'est de participer") is at odds with the ideals of the Greeks.

Coubertin's assertion that the games were the impetus for peace was also an exaggeration; the peace which he spoke of only existed to allow athletes to travel safely to Olympia, and neither prevented the outbreak of wars nor ended ongoing ones.

Scholars have critiqued the idea that athletic competition might lead to greater understanding between cultures and, therefore, to peace. Christopher Hill claims that modern participants in the Olympic movement may defend this particular belief, "in a spirit similar to that in which the Church of England remains attached to the Thirty-Nine Articles of Religion, which a Priest in that Church must sign." In other words, that they may not wholly believe it but hold to it for historical reasons.

Questions have also been raised about the veracity of Coubertin's account of his role in the planning of the 1896 Athens Games. Reportedly, Coubertin played little role in planning, despite entreaties by Vikelas. Young suggests that the story about Coubertin's having sketched the velodrome were untrue, and that he had in fact given an interview in which he suggested he did not want Germans to participate. Coubertin later denied this.

Legacy

The traditional Olympic motto Citius, Altius, Fortius (Faster, Higher, Stronger) was proposed by Coubertin in 1894, and was official from 1924 until modified to the current Citius, Altius, Fortius – Communiter (Faster, Higher, Stronger – Together) in 2021. The traditional motto was coined by Henri Didon OP, a friend of Coubertin, for a Paris youth gathering of 1891.

The Pierre de Coubertin World Trophy given by the International Fair Play Committee has been awarded since 1965 for gestures of fair play in which an athlete impedes their performance to aid a fellow competitor.

The Pierre de Coubertin Medal is a special decoration awarded by the International Olympic Committee since 1997 that "pays tribute to institutions with a pedagogical and educational role and to people who, through their research and the creation of intellectual works in the spirit of Pierre de Coubertin, contribute to the promotion of Olympism."

A minor planet, 2190 Coubertin, was discovered in 1976 by Soviet astronomer Nikolai Stepanovich Chernykh and is named in his honour.

The street where the Olympic Stadium in Montreal is located (which hosted the 1976 Summer Olympic Games) was named after Pierre de Coubertin, giving the stadium the address 4549 Pierre de Coubertin Avenue. It is the only Olympic stadium in the world that lies on a street named after Coubertin. There are also two schools in Montreal named after Pierre de Coubertin.

He was portrayed by Louis Jourdan in the 1984 NBC miniseries, The First Olympics: Athens 1896.

In 2007, he was inducted into the World Rugby Hall of Fame for his services to the sport of rugby union.

List of works

This is a listing of Pierre de Coubertin's books. In addition to these, he wrote numerous articles for journals and magazines:

Une Campagne de 21 ans. Paris: Librairie de l'Éducation Physique. 1908.

Coubertin, Pierre de (1900–1906). La Chronique de France (7 vols.). Auxerre and Paris: Lanier. pp. 7 v.

L'Éducation anglaise en France. Paris: Hachette. 1889.

L'Éducation en Angleterre. Paris: Hachette. 1888.

Essais de psychologie sportive. Lausanne: Payot. 1913.

L'Évolution française sous la Troisième République. Études d'histoire contemporaine. Paris: Hachette. 1896.

France Since 1814. New York: Macmillan. 1900. Retrieved 27 February 2018 – via Internet Archive.

La Gymnastique utilitaire. Paris: Alcan. 1905.

Histoire universelle (4 vols.). Aix-en-Provence: Société de l'histoire universelle. 1919.

Mémoires olympiques. Lausanne: Bureau international de pédagogie sportive. 1931.

Notes sur l'éducation publique. Paris: Hachette. 1901.

Pages d'histoire contemporaine. Paris: Plon. 1908.

Pédagogie sportive. Paris: Crés. 1922.

Le Respect Mutuel. Paris: Alean. 1915.