Good Morning America! 2023 ISOH General Assembly in Colorado Springs

by Dr. Christian Wacker

Beautiful autumnal sunshine accompanied the ISOH General Assembly in Colorado Springs over the weekend of 6 to 8 October.

It was the first time in our history that a full, stand-alone General Assembly (GA) had taken place in the United States, although we did hold a shorter GA for members during the 1996 Atlanta Olympics.

Not only does the United States Olympic and Paralympic Committee (USOPC) have its home here, complete with spacious training facilities, but since 2020, the United States Olympic and Paralympic Museum USOPM has been telling the story of US sports.

The museum hosted our General Assembly, provided insights into its work, and organised guided tours of the displays. There were also reports on the collections held.

A pleasing number of ISOH members and guests attended the GA. In all, around 35 were present in person and another 30 followed the online stream of the event.

We were also pleased to welcome a number of distinguished guests from the USOPM. These included Thane Baker, a member of the US gold medal winning 4x100m squad at the 1956 Melbourne Olympics who also won individual 200m silver in 1952 and bronze in 1956. Michelle Dusserre Farrell, who won team silver in artistic gymnastics at the 1984 Los Angeles Games and Jack Elder, a competitor in luge at the 1972 Sapporo Winter Olympics were also present.

The International Pierre de Coubertin Committee (IPCC) was represented by its President Stephan Wassong. His presentation on “Pierre de Coubertin’s Network in the USA and its Importance for the foundation of the Olympic Games,” will be included in the next issue of the Journal of Olympic History.

Garry Rhodes of the United States IPCC also joined our meeting.

Maria Bogner of the Olympic Studies Centre in Lausanne also joined us. Her tremendous support of ISOH is greatly appreciated.

Our programme began on Friday evening with a lecture on native Americans at the Olympics from 1904 to 1912 by James Ring Adams from the Smithsonian National Museum of the American Indian (NMIA).

This was followed by the General Assembly where honours for the life-time award and Vikelas plaque were presented. The 2023 life-time award went to Ingomar Weiler of Austria who was unable to be with us in person, but we hope to make the presentation in his homeland at a later date.

Happily the 2022 recipient, Bruce Kidd of Canada, was able to join us and expressed his gratitude with a talk on the “Olympic Movement and Human Rights.”

trenchant speech by Bruce Kidd on human rights @ISOHOlympic General Assembly pic.twitter.com/qBCygbvano

— Philip Barker (@pbarkersport) October 7, 2023

The Vikelas Plaque was awarded to Stephan Wassong.

The programme concluded with brief contributions by Linda Fuller based on her new book about Female Olympian and Paralympian athlete activists, and a presentation of a documentary film project by Georges Hirthler.