150th Birthday of Baron Pierre de Coubertin

A portrait of a young Pierre de Coubertin. Stylised Olympic rings form the background and frame silhouettes representing the Olympic sports. On the left, the issuing country "RF" and the year "2013"; along the top the inscription "PIERRE DE COUBERTIN" in a semicircle.

Pierre de Coubertin is far more to France than a historical footnote in the world of sport. Born in Paris in 1863, this educator and social reformer developed, toward the end of the 19th century, the conviction that physical education and international sporting competition could foster social cohesion and peace. Driven by this idea, he spent years persistently campaigning until the International Olympic Committee was founded in Paris in 1894 — with Coubertin as its first Secretary-General and, from 1896, as President. The first modern Olympic Games took place in Athens in 1896. Coubertin not only shaped the institutional structure of the Olympic movement but also formulated its ethical foundation: the Olympic ideal, and the emphasis on participation over mere victory, are largely attributable to him. He is thus one of the few individuals who genuinely conceived and built a global movement of the 20th century.

The connection between France and the Olympic idea is therefore no coincidence: Coubertin came from a Francophile educated elite, and his reform ideas were fed by his engagement with English school sport, which he saw as a model for France's educational reform after its defeat in 1871. He lived and worked for a long time in Lausanne, where he also died in 1937 — his heart, at his own wish, was buried in Olympia. On the 150th anniversary of Baron Pierre de Coubertin's birth, France honoured this legacy in 2013 with a 2-euro commemorative coin that keeps his contribution to Olympic history visible.