Gheorghe, Prince Bibescu

Gheorghe, Prince Bibescu served on the IOC from 1899 until Februay 1902, when he died. There was only one IOC Session during his tenure and he did not attend it. Prince Bibescu was from a noble Romanian family but grew up in France, where the family lived in exile. He served in the French Army during the Mexican expedition of 1862 and, after service in Algeria in 1867, fought in the Franco-German war of 1870 during which he became a prisoner-of-war at Koblenz. He later wrote a five-volume work of military history describing his own military campaigns, and also wrote treatises on Romanian history and politics, and wrote of how to duel with sword or pistol. His two favorite sports were, as one might expect from that last book, fencing and shooting. Prince Bibescu was in charge of the Romanian Paviliion at the 1900 Paris Exposition and wrote two pamphlets on the topic.

Prince Bibescu died under unusual circumstances. He died from a heart attack in his carriage after an audience with the Sultan of Turkey and there were rumors that he had been poisoned. His son, George-Valentin Bibescu helped form the Romanian Olympic Committee in 1914 and served as its second president.