Hold the Back Page, AIPS celebrates Centenary

Hold the Back Page, AIPS celebrates Centenary

by Philip Barker

July 2nd is World Sports Journalists Day. On that day in 1924, only a few days before the last Paris Olympics, two distinguished Olympians arranged a meeting in a boxing ring at the Sporting Club de France.

Organising Committee Secretary Frantz Reichel, incidentally the founder of the French boxing Federation, did not exchange any blows with his Belgian colleague Victor Boin.

Instead, the pair proposed the establishment of an international association for sports journalists.

The meeting of 80 sports journalists from 29 nations established what became known as the Association Internationale de Presse Sportive (AIPS)

Reichel had been involved with press arrangements for the famous 1894 Congress at the Sorbonne which had accepted the proposal of French nobleman Baron Pierre de Coubertin to revive the Olympics.

In 1896 at the first modern Games in Athens, Reichel competed in the 110m hurdles and the 400m but failed to progress from the heats. He also sent back reports to L’Auto, the French newspaper which later established the Tour de France.

In 1900 Reichel played for the French rugby side which defeated Moseley from the English midlands and Eintracht Frankfurt scoring tries in each match.

He was a busy man, and became International Hockey Federation President in 1926. He worked for Le Figaro until his death from a heart attack in 1932.

French journalists have been closely involved with the Olympic movement ever since. The 2024 Official programme for the Olympics and Paralympics has been produced by the great French sports daily L’Equipe cementing the connection.

Jacques Goddet who in 1924 started work for L’Auto, a forerunner of L’Equipe was awarded the the Olympic Order in 1981.

Robert Pariente, long time editor of L’Equipe, was awarded the decoration in 1980. Towards the end of his life, he also served on the IOC’s Culture and Education Commission. He was a prolific Olympic author and a regular contributor to the Olympic Review.

Alain Lunzenfichter, who retired in 2021 after 37 years at L’Equipe, had been a Vice President of AIPS, and was inducted and founded a group for Olympic journalists. His Olympic Order was awarded in 1996.

The current AIPS President is the Italian athletics specialist Gianno Merlo of Gazzetta Dello Sport, a paper which first appeared at the time of the 1896 Athens Games.

He has occupied the post since 2005 and might well become the longest serving AIPS President.

The current record holder is Victor Boin who led the organisation from 1932 until 1956. His tenure also included the second world war when global sports journalism activity was necessarily limited.

Boin’s remarkable Olympic career encompassed water polo, swimming and, at the Antwerp 1920 Games, fencing.

He was also the first to take the Olympic Oath.

“Coubertin paid me the honour, in agreement with the Belgian Olympic Committee, of selecting me to take the Olympic oath in the name of all competitors. It was the first time it had been done to compete, in the stadium, chivalrously and for honour alone.”

After the second world war Boin worked hard to revive the AIPS activities.

“Sports journalists wish to set an example of impartial judgement and fair opinion. They wish to place ethics ahead of competition.”

Boin later became President of the Belgian Olympic Committee and founded the Belgian Paralympic Committee. He died in 1974.

The tradition of Olympians who forged a career in journalism goes back to Reichel and those first Athens Games.

After the First World War, South Africa’s Bevil Rudd completed the 400m/800m double in Antwerp and then wrote widely on sport for the Daily Telegraph in the interwar years.

Harold Abrahams, the 100m gold medallist in 1924 was another who forged a career in the media both as a writer and a commentator for BBC Radio.

He also worked on the first Olympics after the second world war in London.

At those Games there were two French competitors who had a journalist pedigree.

Marcel Hansenne, who won 800m bronze was already a journalist for France-Vélo and went on to also work for L’Equipe.

“It is a double edged job being a runner and a sports writer, the writer can write about the runner but the runner cannot run away from the writer,” Hansenne quipped.

The French also included a young swimmer who was also a sports journalist. Her name was Monique Berlioux. Though she failed to progress from the heats of the 100m backstroke she made her mark in Olympic circles, first as IOC Press Chief under President Avery Brundage and subsequently as Lausanne bureau chief under Lord Killanin and Juan Antonio Samaranch.

Coubertin himself wrote extensively and Avery Brundage was responsible for granting official Olympic recognition to AIPS but Killanin was the only IOC President who had been able to write the term journalist in his passport

He did not cover sport but had been a journalist with the Daily Express and the Daily Mail and reported on the Sino-Japanese war.

He also edited Four Days, an account of the Munich crisis in 1938.

Killanin was elected IOC President in 1972 and over the next few years worked closely with the highly respected British Olympic journalist and ISOH member John Rodda of The Guardian on a history of the Games which was first published before the 1976 Games in Montreal.

Rodda served on the IOC Press Commission and was a recipient of the Olympic Order. He died in 2009 but his name was remembered in the media working room for the London 2012 Games.

Other journalists honoured with the Olympic order included IOC members Sir Lance Cross, who was a sports broadcaster with the New Zealand Broadcasting Corporation and Alex Gilady of Israel, a powerful broadcasting executive in both the United States and his native Israel.

There was an award for NBC’s Dick Ebersol in 1992 and Australian commentator Norman May was recognised in 2000.

ABC’s long time Olympic presenter Jim McKay first covered the Olympics in 1960 for CBS, then went on to host ABC’s coverage through 1988 missing only the Summer Games at Moscow. He received the order in 1998.

Two years later BBC Television commentator David Coleman was also so honoured after covering every Olympics from 1960 to 2000.

Both men had been on air for their respective stations during the terrorist attack at Munich 1972.

The highly respected Australian journalist and ISOH member Harry Gordon was granted the Olympic order in the wake of the Sydney Olympics.

In 2002 Former ISOH President David Wallechinsky, a prolific broadcaster and journalist was also recognised.

ISOH member David Miller just missed out on selection for the British football team at the 1956 Melbourne Games but much of his working life has been devoted to the Olympic movement and his Official History of the Olympic Games and the IOC: Athens to London 1894-2012 remains a valuable source of reference. He was awarded the Coubertin Medal last year.