At the invitation of IOC President Thomas Bach, and at a ceremony on 10 February in Lausanne, Prof. Dr. Stephan Wassong gave a lecture on the historical significance of the founding speech made by Pierre de Coubertin in 1892. The ceremony was organised by the IOC on the occasion of the handing over of the manuscript of Baron Pierre de Coubertin’s speech of 25 November 1892. It was in this speech that Coubertin introduced his idea to revive the Olympic Games for the first time in public.

In December 2019, the original manuscript was sold at auction at Sotheby`s in New York for USD 8.8. million; around seven times higher than the originally estimated auction price. The buyer, Alisher Usmanov, President of the International Fencing Federation, has now donated this unique document to the IOC. It will be exhibited at the Olympic Museum in Lausanne. Prof. Dr. Stephan Wassong was invited as a guest speaker at this ceremony in his role as President of the International Pierre de Coubertin Committee (CIPC).

The International Olympic Committee issued a detailed press release about this donation, https://www.olympic.org/news/pierre-de-coubertin-s-historic-founding-text-finds-its-home-at-the-olympic-museum-in-lausanne.

Jean Durry, the CIPC Vice-President, also attended the ceremony. Alexandra de Navacelle de Coubertin, President of the Association Familiale Pierre de Coubertin, was also present. Both of them delivered short speeches.

The CIPC is grateful to the IOC and its President for inviting Prof. Dr. Stephan Wassong to this important event not only as a guest bus also as a guest speaker. 

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Prof. Wassong’s full speech:

President Stephan Wassong

Lausanne,10^thFebruary 2020

Speech on the occasion of the handover of Coubertin`s speech from 25^thNovember 1892 to the IOC

Distinguished President of the International Olympic Committee, Mr. Bach,
Distinguished donor of the manuscript,
Distinguished honorary guests,
Distinguished guests,

Thank you very much for the invitation to this ceremony. It is a real honour for me to address you today in my role as President of the International Pierre de Coubertin Committee. Today`s ceremony will be highly valued in contemporary and future considerations on the legacy of Baron Pierre de Coubertin. Academic honour must be given to the donor for handing over the manuscript to The Olympic Museum as a place for discourse about, reflection on and understanding of the Olympic Movement. This can be described and has to be valued as an educational philanthropism which has become rare today.

It is my pleasure to highlight the historic importance of the document in the next few minutes.

Pierre de Coubertin delivered the speech on 25^th  November 1892. The occasion was the celebration of the 5^th anniversary of the Union des Sociétés françaises de Sport athlétiques which was an umbrella organization for the promotion of sport in France. Coubertin was the founder of this organization. The place for the speech was well chosen as it was the auditorium of the old Sorbonne, giving the celebration and the topic of sport an academic value. Two years later and again at the auditorium of the Sorbonne it was decided to re-establish the modern Olympic Games. This was on 23^rd June 1894.

I think that today two main arguments have to be analyzed to stress the historical significance of the speech delivered on 25^th November 1892.

The first argument is that Coubertin informed the public for the first time about his idea to revive the Olympic Games in a modern context. He mentioned this at the end of his speech and encouraged the audience to support him. The audience was surprised about the presentation of this ambitious idea and reacted moderately. But despite this passive reaction the topic had been addressed officially and recognized by a sport-oriented public. Probably, this paved the way for Coubertin`s success in 1894 when it was decided to re-establish the modern Olympic Games in Paris. Between 25^th November 1892 – the date of the speech – and 23^rd June 1894 – the day when the decision was made to re-establish the Olympic Games – Coubertin found support for the idea in France, Great Britain and the USA.

The second argument for stressing the importance of the speech is that it evidences why Coubertin intended to re-establish the Olympic Games. Let me expand on this.

Although Coubertin did mention his idea to revive the Olympic Games only in the last sentences of his 14-page-long speech, he prepared the rationale for it right from the beginning. The speech is choreographed very well and leads to the climax at the end. I will explain this in the next few minutes, and by doing this I am correcting some wrong academic statements which claim that Coubertin developed his idea more or less spontaneously. Once again, a careful analysis of the 1892 speech is the basis for this academic exercise and its outcome stresses the significance of the speech.

Coubertin starts by describing German and Swedish gymnastics, their origins and development. He explains the main differences between the two gymnastic systems. He sees the main objective of German gymnastics in military training; that of Swedish gymnastics in a health orientation. Maybe it is not really surprising that Coubertin favours the Swedish gymnastic system over the German one. But, for him, both systems fell short of making a significant contribution to the value of character education. Coubertin reserves this to sport and continues his speech with considerations on this. In this context it has to be mentioned that in those times sport was viewed as an alternative, if not an opposing system to gymnastics as it included a strong competitive element in the performance. Sport was used as an umbrella term for track and field, swimming, football, hockey and other team games.

In his speech Coubertin stresses the ancient roots of sport which he linkes with physical culture in Greece and the ancient Olympic Games. But his main focus was on the development of modern sport and the fact that sport had to be regarded as an educational tool for character development and hence as a vehicle to support the education of the modern citizen.

According to Coubertin, the educational role ascribed to sport was coined in educational contexts at the English Public Schools (private boarding schools) and universities. For Coubertin it seemes to be important to mention that, from England, sport and its educational value spread to the world. Coubertin referres, amongst others, to countries of the Commonwealth, the USA and also to France. From his speech we can also learn that Coubertin had carried out an international survey in 1889 to analyze the increasing reputation of sport in educational settings. He did this for the International Congress on Physical Education, which he co-organized during the 1889 Paris World Fair. The survey is one of the first conducted on the status of physical education on the international level at all. The fact that the results of the survey were mentioned in the speech further stresses the historical relevance of the document.

In his speech Coubertin stresses the fact that sport had developed into an international phenomenon and that it was enjoying increasing popularity worldwide. For Coubertin, this was the motivation for expanding the educational impact of sport by adding an international dimension to it. He clearly referred to this at the end of his speech and this is so vital to understanding the why of Coubertin’s intention to revive the Olympic Games.

Coubertin argues that the international nature of sport was the prerequisite to bring athletes from different nations together; an objective whose realization was supported by the innovations in the transport system of those days. Of course, Coubertin recognized this and encouraged advocates of sport to use this advantage.

Analyzing this part of Coubertin’s speech further, one can claim that for Coubertin the aim of international meetings should not be the athletic competition only. According to him, international athletic festivals/competitions should give the opportunity to get into contact with representatives of other nations and to learn more about their cultures. This should lead to the reduction of mistrust and prejudice against other nations, which was regarded as one of the main driving forces behind the outbreak of armed conflicts.

This consideration on an educational internationalism is rooted in recommendations of the World Peace Conferences staged since 1889. Coubertin knew about the recommendations of the World Peace Conferences and he believed that the Olympic Games could make a contribution to them. Knowing this, we can defuse some challenging and also wrong academic viewpoints that Coubertin established the Olympic Games only to stimulate the then retarded sport development in France. Against the background of the speech this statement lacks an academic validity.

It becomes clear in the speech that Coubertin proposes the establishment of the Olympic Games to stress the educational value of sport in general and as a platform to strengthen transnational understanding in particular. This is an academically proven explanation of why Coubertin proposed the re-establishment of the Olympic Games.

In his speech in 1892 he laid down the educational fundamentals of the Olympic Idea; educational fundamentals which still coin the uniqueness of the Olympic Movement and its mission to “Build a Better World Through Sport”. This is the historical relevance of the speech. 

The link between Coubertin`s speech delivered on 25<sup>th</sup> November 1892 and the modern mission of the IOC stresses that Coubertin`s thoughts and ideas are not from the past. They still have relevance for today`s Olympic Movement and its impact on societies across the globe. Of course, an application of this requires a contemporary reading of Coubertin and the adaption of his ideas to our times. As we can learn from Coubertin`s writing he did not oppose this. Actually, he encouraged us to do so as to him the adaption of his Olympic ideas to changing conditions in sport and society were relevant for the authenticity of Olympism. Thank you very much for your attention and for the invitation to attend this ceremony.