Pierre de Coubertin

Biography

Pierre de Frédy, Baron de Coubertin, was born in Paris on 1 January 1863 into an aristocratic family. Educated at a Jesuit school, he studied law and public affairs at the Paris Institute of Political Studies (Sciences Po) and chose a life as a writer and scholar of education and history rather than the army or politics.

Visits to English public schools such as Rugby convinced him that organised sport built moral character, and he campaigned without success to bring physical education into French schools. He helped organise French athletics through the Union of French Athletic Sports Societies and in 1892 first proposed publicly that the Olympic Games be revived.

At a congress he organised at the Sorbonne in June 1894, delegates agreed to hold modern Olympic Games every four years, starting at Athens in 1896, and set up the International Olympic Committee. Coubertin succeeded Demetrios Vikelas as IOC president in 1896 and led it until 1925, through difficult Games in Paris (1900) and St. Louis (1904) to the success of Paris 1924. He also created the modern pentathlon, and under a pseudonym won the gold medal for literature at the 1912 art competitions with his "Ode to Sport".

After retiring he was honorary IOC president until his death in Geneva in 1937.