Pierre, Prince Grimaldi

Born as Count Pierre Marie Xavier Raphael Antoine Melchior de Polignac, Prince Pierre married Princess Charlotte of Monaco in 1920, and legally changed his surname to Grimaldi, also receiving the title of Duke of Valentinois from the Court of Monaco. Prince Pierre was responsible for the start of the Monaco Formula I Grand Prix in 1929. He could not succeed to the throne of Monaco, but in 1949, at the death of his ex-wife’s father (they had divorced in 1933), his son, Prince Rainier III succeeded to the throne.

Prince Rainer had only recently been co-opted onto the IOC and quickly resigned his membership, and was succeeded by Prince Pierre, the only time a father has succeeded a son as an IOC Member. Prince Pierre remained on the IOC until his death in 1964. His main contribution to the Olympic Movement came in 1954 when the IOC proposed a competition to find a new Olympic Hymn. The chosen winner was Michał Spisak, a Pole living in Paris since 1937, and Prince Pierre wrote the lyrics to his music by choosing extracts from Pindar’s Odes. However, Spisak’s hymn was never terribly popular and his demands for excessive royalties led it not to be chosen as the official Olympic Hymn.