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Will the Olympics ever be politics-free?

Despite Baron Coubertin’s ideals, nationalistic friction at the Paris Games in 1924 had already prompted a Times headline: ‘Olympics doomed’

20 July 2024

9:00 AM

20 July 2024

9:00 AM

The modern Olympics, first held in Athens in 1896 in a genuflection to their Grecian predecessors, was the creation of Pierre de Coubertin, a French aristocrat. As this septet of books shows from allusive angles, Coubertin’s best known quotation – ‘the most important thing in the Olympic Games is not winning but taking part’ – must rank as a paradigm example of a precept more honoured in the breach than the observance.

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