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The Early History of Olympism in Uruguay (1911-1924): a National

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The Early History of Olympism in Uruguay (1911-1924): a National The Early History of Olympism in Uruguay (1911-1924): A National- Global Perspective Shunsuke Matsuo The University of Tokyo, JAPAN Final report for the IOC Olympic Studies Centre PhD Students Research Grant Programme 2017 Award Final Revision: April 23, 2018 Table of contents Executive Summary Abstract Keywords 1. Research Subject and Objectives --------------------------------------- 1 2. Literature Review ------------------------------------------------------------- 3 3. Academic Significance of the Project and its Impact on the Olympic Movement ----------------------------------------------------------- 6 4. Methodology and Key Sources ------------------------------------------- 9 4.1. Uruguayan Sources 4.2. YMCA Sources 4.3. IOC Sources 5. Findings and Analysis ----------------------------------------------------- 11 5.1. CNEF and its Olympic contacts during the 1910s 5.2. CNEF and the North American YMCA during the 1910s 5.3. 1922 South American Games and the Intense Collaboration between CNEF-YMCA-IOC (1920-1923) 5.4. “Sports for All” as a Catalyst of the IOC-YMCA-CNEF Connections 5.5. Collapse of the IOC-YMCA-CNEF triangle from 1923 5.6. Uruguay’s Participation in the 1924 Paris Olympics and the football-political conflict 6. Possible Further Research Development ---------------------------- 20 7. Publication Plan ------------------------------------------------------------- 22 8. Bibliography ------------------------------------------------------------------ 23 Executive Summary Research Subject and Objectives This research examines the early history of Olympism in Uruguay beyond the supposed “beginning” of the official constitution of the Uruguayan Olympic Committee in 1923 and the country’s brilliant debut in the 1924 Paris Olympics. Concretely, it analyzes the following two foundational periods of Uruguay’s Olympic history, calling attention to the continuity in change. 1. Uruguay’s contacts with the Olympic Movement during the 1910s 2. IOC-YMCA alliance and its consequences in Uruguay during the 1920s Existing Literature and Directions for Research Studies on the early history of the Olympic Movement in Latin America have stressed the primary importance of the partnership between the IOC and the North American YMCA, which sought to promote sports and Olympism in peripheral regions. While these works consider the “Olympic explosion” in Latin American nations during the 1920s as a result of the “external” influence of the IOC-YMCA diffusion strategy, little attention is paid to the “internal” intricacy and the even earlier expression of Olympism that existed prior to 1920. As for Uruguay specifically, the only academic inquiry into the Olympism in this period focuses on the football participation in the 1924 Paris Olympics, which was heavily charged with national political struggle. Although it describes one aspect of the Olympic Movement in the exclusively national context, much of the larger global dynamism that gave shape to the early Olympism is ignored. In contrast to these existing studies, which focus on either the global or the national aspect of Uruguayan Olympism’s foundational period, my research proposes to combine the global and the national perspectives by incorporating primary sources from the international institutions involved as well as those relevant to Uruguay’s sports policy, thus reaching a more comprehensive understanding of the early Olympic Movement in Uruguay. Key Sources As a solid historical investigation, this study bring together a wide range of primary sources related to the IOC, the YMCA, and Uruguay’s national sports policy from respective archives located in Europe, North America, and Uruguay. Core sources include minute books, correspondence, reports, and other administrative documents of each institution. Some published sources, magazines, and newspapers are also consulted. Finding 1: CNEF and its Olympic contacts during the 1910s The National Committee of Physical Education (CNEF), the governmental institution in charge of all national policy related to sports and physical education founded in 1911, maintained a constant communication with the IOC and Coubertin during the 1910s. These initial contacts include: 1. a failed attempt to send an official to the 1912 Stockholm Olympics; 2. a letter of the CNEF chairman to Coubertin in 1914 asking for advice on Uruguay’s incipient sports policy; 3. a verbal and informal proposal by a CNEF delegate to host the 1920 Olympic Games in Montevideo. Discussions surrounding these events suggest that the CNEF fully embraced the authority of the IOC and the Olympic Movement as a supreme reference for the elaboration of sports policy as early as the 1910s. Finding 2: CNEF and the North American YMCA during the 1910s Similarly, the CNEF also established a particularly close connection to the YMCA during the 1910s through its technical director, Jess Hopkins. This was as much a successful result of the expansion strategy of the YMCA as a consequence of the CNEF’s own effort to find a solid framework in which its sports policy should be designed. Finding 3: Intense Collaboration between CNEF-YMCA-IOC (1920-1923) The IOC-YMCA partnership signed in 1920 and their diffusion strategy encountered in Uruguay an extensive and well-constructed sports policy led by the CNEF, which had already established more or less substantial connection with both the IOC and the YMCA. This resulted in an extraordinary intense collaboration between the IOC, the YMCA, and the CNEF, which mutually recognized each other’s merit and virtue as a promotor of sports culture. The award of the Olympic Cup to the CNEF in 1925 testifies to this harmonious relationship that existed during the early 1920s. This perspective also allows us to regard Uruguay’s Olympic participation in the 1920s not only as a response to the external intervention but as a consequence of the sports policy-making effort that the CNEF had developed since the 1910s. Finding 4: “Sports for All” as a Catalyst of the IOC-YMCA-CNEF Connections One common objective that united the IOC, the YMCA, and the CNEF was an ideal similar to what we call today “sports for all.” They shared a strong belief that the ultimate goal of large-scale sports competitions was not the formation of a handful of elite athletes, but the diffusion and establishment of healthy sporting habits among the masses. However, it is also possible to perceive slightly different understandings between Coubertin’s “all sports for all people,” YMCA’s “play for everybody,” and the CNEF’s democratic and inclusive sports policy. Finding 5: Collapse of the IOC-YMCA-CNEF triangle since 1923 However, the triangular relationship between the IOC, the YMCA, and the CNEF was tragically ephemeral. The CNEF lost its initial commitment to the Olympic Movement after 1923 when the IOC member Francisco Ghigliani was kicked out from the CNEF due to a political antagonism. The IOC-YMCA partnership did not last long, because of the sudden death of its architect, Elwood Brown, in 1924, and the reluctance of international sports federations to collaborate with regional games. Finally, the direct and efficient connection between the CNEF and the YMCA was lost when Hopkins decided to step down from his service in Uruguay because of a financial crisis in 1928. Contribution to the Understanding of the Olympic Movement 1. Complexity of the Olympism’s globalization process 2. Pivotal role of local actors in the peripheries as an active agent of the Olympic diffusion 3. Historicity of the mass sports promotion as an Olympic value Abstract This research examines the early history of Olympism in Uruguay beyond the alleged “beginning” in 1923. Based on a thorough investigation on primary sources related to the IOC, the YMCA, and the National Committee of Physical Education (CNEF), the governmental institution in charge of all national sports policy in Uruguay, it has revealed that the CNEF, as part of its policy-setting efforts, maintained a constant communication with the Olympic Movement as early as the 1910s. The outcomes of this research also shed light on the important role that Uruguay played in the global enterprise for Olympic diffusion in South America during the early 1920s. In fact, the IOC-YMCA partnership formed in 1920 resulted in Uruguay in an extraordinarily intense collaboration between the IOC, the YMCA, and the CNEF, three institutions that shared a similar ideal of mass sports promotion. The award of the Olympic Cup to the CNEF in 1925 testifies to this harmonious relationship. However, this IOC-YMCA-CNEF triangle tragically collapsed during the latter half of the 1920s. Keywords Olympic expansion, Uruguay, South America, peripheries, local agency, sports policy, sports for all, Coubertin, Baillet-Latour, YMCA 1. Research Subject and Objectives This research project aims to analyze historically the early development of Olympism in Uruguay during the years around and prior to the first official constitution of the Uruguayan Olympic Committee (COU), highlighting the intricate interactions between the local and international sport authorities. Despite the fact that the COU was formally constituted for the first time in 1923 and the first official delegation was consequently sent to the 1924 Paris Games ―in which the Uruguayan football team was awarded with the gold medal, winning over powerful countries from the Northern Hemisphere―, this well-known achievement obtained by the tiny South American country in the international Olympic field perhaps has rather
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