MIND THE GAP AN AUTHORITY IS CREATING. COUBERTIN AND THE OLYMPIC CONGRESS OF 1914

The Olympic Congress of 1914 took place in Paris immediately prior to World War I. It was to highlight Coubertin's standing in front of the President of France. While the formal celebrations were grandiose, the deliberations of the delegates about the future of the Games were a disaster for Coubertin, as he was utterly unprepared for these negotiations. He was confronted with the power of the newly founded international sports federations which wanted to have a decisive vote on their sports. Coubertin was even ready to resign on the question of women's participation in the Games. No complete Minutes of the Congress were ever published. Coubertin's description in his autobiography and the abridged version of the Proceedings after the Great War contain fakes which have not been questioned by the scholars of Olympic history because of the authority of Coubertin. Using newspaper records of the participants of various countries it is attempted to reconstruct what happened at the Congress.