Godefroy, Baron de Blonay

Godefroy, Baron de Blonay, is not considered to have been a President of the IOC by some historians, but he did serve in the office titularly for a short time. Godefroy de Blonay was born in Switzerland on 25 July 1869. A scholar and professor, de Blonay was a distinguished Egyptologist. He lived in Paris for many years, during which time he presumably met Coubertin, but he eventually settled in Switzerland where he taught at the University of Neuchâtel.

In 1899, Coubertin appointed de Blonay as the first Swiss member of the International Olympic Committee, and he remained a member until his death 38 years later. In 1912, de Blonay was responsible for founding the Swiss Olympic Committee and he served as its first President from 1912-1915.

In 1916, Pierre, Baron de Coubertin enlisted in the French Army, where he served in administrative posts until the end of World War I (1919). Coubertin felt that it was not appropriate for the President of the IOC, which he considered an organization promoting peaceful purposes, to be a member of the military, so he resigned his post as President, and asked Baron de Blonay to serve provisionally as IOC President. The neutrality of de Blonay’s Swiss homeland certainly figured in this decision. Thus Godefroy, Baron de Blonay served as provisional IOC President from 1916-19, at which time Coubertin, who was discharged from the Army because of his age, resumed his duties. During his short administration, de Blonay did relatively little, simply keeping the IOC alive in name while the world was at war.

In 1921 Coubertin felt that his duties as President required some help and he formed a five-member Executive Board to help him run the IOC. De Blonay was a member of the Executive Board from its inception in 1921 and he remained on the Board until he left the IOC in 1937. He served as President of the Executive Board from 1921-25, and then as Vice-President of the IOC from 1925-37. De Blonay was a close friend of Coubertin, but when he attempted, in his position as President of the Executive Board, to obtain certain administrative functions for this group, severe tensions developed between them, which likely prevented de Blonay from being elected to succeed to IOC President in 1925, when Coubertin stepped down.

Godefroy, Baron de Blonay died at the age of 67 on 14 February 1937, while traveling in Biskra, Algeria.