A bust of de Coubertin has been placed in Olympic House.
Return to the Sorbonne
by Philip Barker
A concert at the Sorbonne University in Paris is to celebrate the 130th anniversary of the decision made there to revive the Olympic Games for the Modern Era.
It is set to take place on June 23rd which is “Olympic Day.”
The concert has been organised by the Association Familiale Coubertin (AFC) in conjunction with the student cultural organisation Crous de Paris, the Sorbonne Student Orchestra (OCUP), French Sport Federation and the French Dancesport Federation.
Some 700 are set to attend the concert which will be in the Sorbonne Amphitheatre; International Olympic Committee (IOC) President Thomas Bach is set to join the audience.
The concert will feature an exhibition of breakdancing, a new sport for Paris 2024.
Coubertin had served as IOC President for over a quarter of a century in the formative years of the movement. He stood down as Olympic leader in 1925 and died in 1937.
“He wanted a member of the family to be close to his work and close to the activities of the IOC and he said that we should be the guarantors of his memory,” explained Alexandra de Navacelle de Coubertin, a fourth-generation descendant who represents the AFC as a member of the IOC Heritage and Culture Commission.
“We want to come up with proposals when there are exceptional moments such as the Paris Games so we have organised a very interesting event,” she added.
The event is set to be part of a cultural programme across the summer including a special exhibition which runs from June 11to September 13.
This is to feature special artefacts from the family archives.
There will also be a series of conferences on the values of Olympism in the week of the Olympic Opening Ceremony.
The IOC organised a special media discussion on De Coubertin to set the scene for the summer.
This was attended by IOC Member Guy Drut who had campaigned for Coubertin’s induction into the Pantheon, a monument in Paris which contains memorials to many distinguished French citizens.
“Unfortunately the idea was not taken up. In France a lot of people are being knocked off their pedestal because a number of people judge the past with the eyes of the present,” Drut said.
“For us this is unacceptable, I can say that for the whole of the French Olympic Committee, Pierre de Coubertin is an honour that we wear, and the basis of the values that he bequeathed to us will always be something that accompanies our actions.
“There are enormous numbers of people in France who admire Coubertin and continue to admire and thank him for all his activities and all that he has bequeathed us.”
Many have suggested that the proposal was rejected because Coubertin opposed the participation of women in the Olympics, a position he held to the end of his life.
The Paris newspaper Le Parisien has reported that Olympic and Paralympic Minister Amélie Oudéa-Castéra does not intend to attend the concert because it coincides with the arrival of the Olympic Flame in Chamonix. 100 years ago the resort was the setting for what was eventually designated the inaugural Winter Olympics.
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