INTERNATIONAL OLYMPIC ACADEMY 7th JOINT - IOA

THE EDUCATIONAL AND INSTRUCTIONAL MEANING
OF OLYMPISM
Mr Ah-Tok CHUA (MAS)
INTRODUCTION
The world witnessed the revival of the modern Olympic Games in
Athens on the 6 th April 1896, which means that for fifteen centuries
the Olympic Games were not given attention at all in the world of
sports. Contrary to former times, when the Olympic Games were
exclusively reserved for Greeks, today the Games are now open to all
nations of the world. This paradigm shift was realized when the
athletes from thirteen countries participated in the first modern
Olympic Games.
For Coubertin, the Olympic Games, however, was a means to
reach out to human development through sports rather than an end in
its own right. Through the Olympic movement he wished to put
forward much broader ideas, that is the Olympic Idea which is a body
of anthroposophic concepts in which sports have been regarded both
as a means and an end.
The purpose of this paper is to establish the origin of Olympism as
propagated by Coubertin and trace its effects as experienced by the
practitioners today. It is therefore, imperative for officials of the
National Olympic Committees and National Olympic Academies to
understand the concepts of Olympism itself especially the origins of
sports education as well as its meaning in relation to the thoughts of
Coubertin. Today the relevancy of the doctrine of Olympism or sport
education needs further attention in this millennium.
It would not do justice by oversimplifying the educational and
instructional meaning of Olympism in a phrase or a sentence. In fact,
Coubertin never gave a complete definition of Olympic Education
(Bold, 1999). His work as a whole, comprising 1350 to 1400 books,
brochures and articles is completely overshadowed by the Olympic
Games. Drawing from the experiences of related sports education, it
can be said that Olympic Education is really a multi-disciplinary field
based on the four pillars – sport, education, culture and environment
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