# “The birth of the association of European National Olympic Committees and its stakes during the 1960s to 1970s”

## TL;DR

This paper explores the challenges and alliances during the 1960s-1970s in forming the Association of European National Olympic Committees.

## Contribution

It reveals how institutional tensions and personal networks shaped the Olympic Movement during this period.

## Key findings

- The French Olympic Committee led efforts to create the European NOC association.
- Avery Brundage of the IOC opposed the initiative to protect IOC authority.
- New alliances emerged in response to Brundage's leadership.

## Abstract

The initiative to associate the European National Olympic Committees was launched in the 1960s by the French Olympic Committee and its president at the time, Count Jean de Beaumont. This project faced hesitations and difficulties when it came to realization. The International Olympic Committee, led by Avery Brundage, notably obstructed it, as he was concerned about not disrupting the overall governance of the Olympic Movement. These years marked the beginning of certain alliances, particularly European ones, within the IOC in response to Brundage’s presidency. Indeed, for the IOC president, the initiatives of Onesti and Beaumont were aimed at targeting the presidency of the IOC. It was during this period that new institutional alliances emerged, with networks of men and women finding themselves at the heart of complex relational knots, continually hindered by opposing institutional forces and constantly energized by unique personal encounters. This highlights the emergence of new institutions, ideologies, and visions of Olympism that developed within the Olympic Movement and around the IOC, and sometimes against it. President Brundage viewed these initiatives from the National Olympic Committees as attempts to undermine the authority of the IOC. According to him, it is the IOC that represents and brings together all the NOCs, not the Permanent General Assembly of the NOCs or the General Assembly of the NOCs of Europe. To promote these issues and alliances, numerous original IOC archives were studied. This research therefore aims to highlight the issues surrounding the creation of the Association of European NOCs while focusing on the Olympic context of the 1960s.