From Bipolar to Multipolar International Relations: Olympism and the Speakers at the International Olympic Academy in the Cold War and Post-Cold War Era

Abstract

When, after his death and burial in Lausanne in 1937, Coubertin’s heart was transferred to be interred in Olympia in March 1938, Carl Diem suggested to John Ketseas the idea of founding an Olympic Academy, which would function as a permanent ‘University of Olympism’. The IOC took over the ‘overall control of this institution in the service of the Olympic ideal’ in June 1939 (IOC archives; cited in Müller 1998: 12). From late 1939, however, the Second World War brought to a halt much of the Olympic movement, and indeed threatened its future. However, Diem, as early as December 1945, began campaigning again for the establishment of an IOA. After Ketseas was elected as an IOC member in 1946, the idea of founding an Olympic academy received more attention in the IOC Sessions. The prospect of building an academy in Greece, which would function as an institution for the spread of the Olympic values, was discussed at the 40^th IOC Session in Stockholm in 1947, and at the 1948 IOC Session in London. Finally, the IOC gave its unanimous support in a vote on the Greek proposal at its session in Rome in 1949, though the Academy was only to be officially inaugurated twelve years later because of delays associated with the archaeological excavations in ancient Olympia (Müller 1998). The academy was officially inaugurated on June 14, 1961, a date scheduled to coincide with the official opening of the unearthed archaeological site in Olympia and the 59^th IOC Session in Athens.