COUBERTIN

“THE IMPORTANT THING IS TO TAKE PART”... 

This well-known saying is about all that remains in the collective imagination of Pierrede Coubertin, a pivotal figure in sports who has given his name to dozens of stadiums, gymnasiums and schools all over his native France and the world. But who was this eccentric pioneer who built the modern Olympic games from scratch?

 Combative but pacifist, visionary but conservative, the only Republican in an ultra-Royalist family, a staunch colonialist who nonetheless stood against antisemitism as a young man, only for his final years to be tarnished by suspicion of proximity to the Nazi regime. 

This contradictory character left an extraordinary legacy: the Summer and Winter Olympics, the introduction of competitive sport from England into France, the staging of competitions for cameras. And this aristocrat, and exceptional fencer himself, opened up the world of sports and the fame it confers to the women and people of colour who were once excluded.