Pierre de Coubertin: The colossal legacy of a forgotten hero

The brilliant innovations of Paris 2024 are destined to mark an evolutionary turning point in the history of the modern Olympic Games. Nothing quite this bold has been attempted before. The dazzling Opening Ceremony on the Seine, the milestone 50/50 achievement in gender parity, and the monumental beauty of venues and fan zones married to Paris’ inimitable landmarks will stun the world and stir the souls of a global audience of more than three billion people.

Ironically, the name of the man who started it all, Pierre de Coubertin – who launched the Games in Paris on June 23, 1894, at the age of 31 – will be largely absent from the festival, as it traditionally has been. Although his name will be evoked by IOC President Thomas Bach, and mentioned by a few dignitaries and journalists, the public will be largely unaware that the world’s most important celebration of humanity owes its origins – and its global success – to the singular work of a bygone visionary. And yet, as Paris will clearly demonstrate, his ideas and his hopes for uniting the world in friendship and peace through sport are becoming ever more relevant and urgent in our divided world.

The gulf between his legacy and his anonymity is as wide as the oceans and continents he crossed to put the Olympic Movement on the map. Today, outside a small circle of historians and Olympic admirers, Coubertin’s name, let alone his story, is all but forgotten. In fact, if you google the 10 most influential people of the 19th century, you’ll get an impressive list of names that includes Abraham Lincoln, Charles Darwin, Alexander Graham Bell, Thomas Edison, Louis Pasteur, Marie Curie and Napoleon, but no Coubertin. And yet, it is not difficult to argue that the relevance, global impact, symbolic power and true meaning of his legacy are more immediate than ever. His name belongs on that list.

Consider the colossus he created. At this moment, more than 200 National Olympic Committees are preparing to celebrate the departure of their teams for Paris. Approximately 14,250 athletes, coaches and officials will arrive in the “City of Light” and settle into the Olympic Village for a fortnight of glorious competition. Thirty-two International Federations will organise 329 events, which will be broadcast and absorbed by billions through every form of modern media.

On the ground in Paris, a staff of 4,000, supported by 45,000 volunteers and 16,000 contractors, will ensure that myriad operational logistics of the Games flow like the Seine. More than eight million tickets have already been sold and some two million Olympic fans will soon descend on the city. Aside from the 20,000 journalists and media representatives covering the Games, those observing the events most closely will be contingents from Los Angeles 2028 and Brisbane 2032 – the next hosts of the Olympic Games – and their winter counterparts from Milano Cortina 2026, plus prospective hosts, the French Alps 2030, and Salt Lake City 2034. The future reach of Coubertin’s legacy is a reality right now.

More importantly, the currency and adaptability of his ideas ensure that every edition of the Olympic Games reflects in some ways the evolution of society and the most pressing issues of the times. That has never been more true than it is today in Coubertin’s hometown of Paris. The 5,250 female Olympians expected to take to the field, achieving full parity with their 5,250 male counterparts for the first time – symbolise the success of a century-long struggle for women’s rights in every field of endeavour. The Refugee Olympic Team – 36 athletes driven from their homes by crises both natural and human-made, who nonetheless rose to the heights of Olympic qualification – throws a spotlight on the inequities suffered by millions of dispossessed people around the world. And with war raging, as the Russian invasion of Ukraine continues into a third year amongst other armed conflicts, the Olympic Movement’s fight for peace is more important than ever.

Coubertin’s Games are not only the world’s greatest celebration of humanity, exhibiting the unity of the world as nothing else can; they are also a prism for every issue that divides us and threatens that unity, every issue at the forefront of global debate. Social progress, cultural conflict and political differences all animate the Games and turn them into a worldwide centre of discourse, giving the Games the kind of relevance Coubertin always hoped they would have.

Paris 2024 will once again make it clear that Coubertin created the most successful international movement of our times. Despite its flaws and the criticism directed at it, the Olympic Movement is an irreplaceable phenomenon of immense value to our world. It has become a USD 7 billion quadrennial enterprise, engaging media empires and corporate partners both worldwide and within the borders of host countries.

Of course, the Olympic Movement has grown and expanded in ways that Coubertin could not have anticipated – and yet it has retained at its soul the values of friendship, excellence and respect that he instilled at the heart of Olympism, and it has clung to the essential mission he set forth on: to unite the world in friendship and peace through sport.

All of which begs the question: why don’t we know him? How is it possible that the man who sacrificed everything he had to make the Olympic Movement a permanent part of world culture has been so thoroughly forgotten? Part of the answer, of course, is timing.

Although he had risen to international prominence as he presided over his last Olympic Games, at Paris 1924, he gradually fell into obscurity after he retired. He had exhausted his family fortune putting the Games on the map and, by the time he died, on a lone walk in a park in Geneva on 2 September 1937, he was all but forgotten beyond the Olympic halls of Lausanne. While a few obituaries and ceremonies celebrated his legacy, the rising conflicts in Europe and the onslaught of World War II buried almost all public memory of the man.

Attempts to resurrect his story in France have met with criticisms by a number of historians and journalists who take issue with his early opposition to women competing in the Games and his refusal to denounce the Nazi hosts of the Olympic Games Berlin 1936. Even though multiple defenders argued his case, Coubertin has basically remained forgotten.

Despite his anonymity, there is little question that Pierre de Coubertin’s genius will be on display once again in his hometown this summer. As Paris vaults the Games to new levels of brilliance, some will wonder how long it will be before the weight of Coubertin’s legacy inevitably draws a bright spotlight to the story of how he built this grand and still-growing contribution to modern life.

George Hirthler is an American writer. He is the author of the historical fiction The Idealist, a novel about the life and times of Baron Pierre de Coubertin. He was awarded the Pierre de Coubertin Medal in 2022.

Published in the Olympic Review 122