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ABOUT THE WORK
OF THE OLYMPIC FUNCTIONARIES
By
EDGAR FRIED
Hon. Sec. General of the Austrian Olympic Committee
The International Olympic Academy meets for the third time.
As such it has produced the first evidence of its vitality. It was not
certain at all at the outset that the experiment initiated in 1960 could
be made into a permanent institution. If I recollect the great doubts
with which the project worked out by Mr. Ketseas had been received
by the high and mighty Olympic officials and with what reserve even
the National Olympic Committees viewed the idea, it is really astonishing
that the International Olympic Academy has been able to make
itself felt in the way it actually has done during the short time of its
existence so that Olympic Movement is just unthinkable without it.
With every day that passes, if it may be expressed that way, it is shown
that the Olympic Movement is hardly appreciated by our contemporaries
and that its high aims are shown little understanding. Particularly
in our days, however, where mankind has almost lost the use of
its limbs due to the ever increasing mechanisation and automation
and were the basic conditions of natural life "running,jumping and throwing"
are more and more neglected, the key-note which Baron de Coubertin
laid down with such vision manifests the great line and task of the
Olympic movement with great clarity:
"So that one hundred young people train their bodies it is necessary
that fifty engage in sports, so that fifty engage in sports it is necessary
that twenty specialise themselves and so that twenty do this it is necessary
that five become models due their excellent performance."
This basic principle is the justification of the Olympic Games
which strives after record performances, through not for the sake of
the record but in onder to stimulate the youth to train their bodies.
As such the Olympic Movement represents a harmonious living together
of sport for records and mass sports which form the basis of every systematic
physical education.
This is also the justification for the high appreciation of sport
and although journalistic exaggerations can be hardly justified it is
still necessary to talk of record performances again and again because
in this way it will be possible to gain the interest of the great public
and induce a few to regular physical training. This brings me to an important
point, that is how it can be made possible to make propaganda
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