INTERNATIONAL OLYMPIC ACADEMY 7th JOINT - IOA

Olympic Congresses called during Coubertin’s presidency were Le
Havre, 1897; Brussels 1905; Paris 1906 and 1914; Lausanne 1913 and
1921; Prague 1925.
The Olympic Congresses carried out a valuable work, laying the
foundation of the Olympic Movement during the difficult first years of
its existence.
Coubertin passed on the IOC Presidency in 1925 to the Count
Baillet-Latour, but safeguarding the Olympic ideals would remain his
main task, until his death in 1937.
After the brilliant organization of the Olympic Games in Berlin
1936, an International Olympic Institute was opened in Berlin. It
was a personal wish of Coubertin carried out by Carl Diem, General
Secretary of the Organization of the Games of XI Olympiad in Berlin,
Olympic expert, friend and collaborator with Coubertin. The Olympic
Studies Institute ran from 1938 to 1944, and included for the first time
the Olympic archives donated by Coubertin. It also edited the
Olympic Review in three languages (e.g. English, French and
German) and researched in many Olympic topics, as the predecessor
of the International Olympic Academy (IOA).
From his position as Director of the International Olympic Studies
Centre in Berlin, Carl Diem wrote, together with Ioannis Ketseas, a
plan for the opening of an International Olympic Academy in Greece.
Ketseas was the secretary of the Hellenic Olympic Committee and had
worked with Diem in organising the first torch relay for the Games of
the XI Olympiad in Berlin.
The Project of the Academy came from Coubertin’s aspirations,
expressed during his visit to Greece in 1927 to Ioannis Chrysafis,
director of the Department of Physical Education at the University of
Athens. In a letter dated 18th March 1937, Coubertin remarked on his
ideas towards the Academy: “I believed that a centre for Olympic
Studies would do more than anything to maintain my work, to help it
progress and to save it from the deviations which I fear.” Coubertin's
thoughts were in accord with the aims of the Hellenic Olympic
Committee, which wanted to set up an academic centre modelled after
the Ancient Gymnasium where the Olympic ideals were shaped by
harmoniously cultivating body, will and mind.
The premature and sudden death of both Chrysafis and Coubertin
made the Hellenic Olympic Committee, which always had shown
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