VIII Olympic Congress Prague 1925

For his final Olympic Congress before retiring as president of the IOC, Pierre de Coubertin was determined to return to the broad Olympic themes of previous Congresses which discussed the role of sport in society and other such intellectual pursuits.

However, given the now unavoidable necessity for the Olympic Congress to be of a technical nature, two simultaneous Congresses were organized, a pedagogical one and a technical one.

Heritage of Coubertin

Coubertin himself only attended the pedagogical Congress, which debated resolutions ranging from the revival of the ancient gymnasium to the idea that the sports press should be encouraged to give greater attention to pedagogical questions and to include science and arts in reports. The pedagogical Congress was not without its critics, but the IOC expressed its commitment to the heritage of Coubertin by putting the question of pedagogical education on the agenda of every IOC Session.

Successful work

The successful work of the Technical Congress was owed to J Sigfried Edström, president of the IAAF, who was presiding over an Olympic Congress for a second time. The discussion of a new amateur definition occupied much of the time but it remained unresolved. However, most notably, the majority of the delegates did recommend that the Olympic Games be limited to two weeks, a tradition which began at the subsequent Games in Amsterdam in 1928. Prior to that the Olympics had been sprawling affairs spread over several weeks, if not months.

IOC Congresses

I Olympic Congress - Paris 1894

II Olympic Congress - Le Havre 1897

III Olympic Congress - Brussels 1905

IV Olympic Congress - Paris 1906

V Olympic Congress - Lausanne 1913

VI Olympic Congress - Paris 1914

VII Olympic Congress - Lausanne 1921

IX Olympic Congress - Berlin 1930

X Olympic Congress - Varna 1973

XI Olympic Congress - Baden-Baden 1981

XII Olympic Congress - Paris 1994

XIII Olympic Congress - Copenhagen 2009

More about IOC history

Evolution of the IOC

Founded at the first Olympic Congress in Paris in 1894, the IOC is the leader of the Olympic Movement and the guardian of the Olympic Games. It acts as a catalyst for collaboration across the entire Olympic community. Discover some of the key milestones in the IOC’s history, from the first publication of the Olympic Charter in 1908 to the founding of the Executive Board in 1921 to the first ever Olympism in Action Forum in 2018.

Lausanne, Olympic capital

The IOC was originally based in Paris, until Pierre de Coubertin moved it to Lausanne on the shores of Lake Geneva in 1915. In 1994, to coincide with the centenary of the IOC, Lausanne was officially designated the Olympic Capital. Read here to discover more about the relationship between the IOC and the city it calls home.

IOC Presidents

Since the creation of the IOC in 1894, there have been nine presidents. The president is elected by the Session in a secret ballot among the IOC Members. Today, the president is elected for a term of office of eight years, renewable once for a period of four years. The current President is Thomas Bach – meet him and his predecessors here.