IOC Congress #6

The 6th Olympic Congress is really the first that can be considered a model for “modern” Olympic Congresses. It also doubled as an IOC Session, however, the 15th. The 6th Congress was held in the Amphithéatre Richelieu at the Sorbonne in Paris from 15-23 June 1914 on the 20th anniversary of the founding of the IOC and the re-establishment of the Olympic Games. The theme was the “Unification of the Olympic Regulations and Eligibility Rules.”

Pierre de Coubertin served as both President of the Congress and head of the organizing committee. The Patron of the Congress was the President of France, Raymond Poincaré. Approximately 140 people took part, with 20 IOC members present, and the other 120 representing 29 NOCs. Thus, it was truly a Congress representative of at least two arms of the Olympic Movement, the IOC and the NOCs. For the first time a representative committee was formed in advance to discuss the agenda of the Congress.

The IOC compiled an agenda in 1913 which mentioned the following topics:

• Conditions for eligibility and participation at the Olympic Games
• Entry forms
• Future Olympic Program
• Determining uniform rules of competition
• Compositions and responsibilities of judges and umpires
• National medal tables

The decisions of the Congress mostly related to the Olympic Program and the rules of amateurism. Pertaining to the Olympic Program, the Congress decided that there should be both obligatory and optional sports, with the obligatory sports required to be on the Olympic Program at all future Olympic Games. The two sections of sports were divided as follows:

Obligatory Sports

• Athletic sports (running, cross-country, walking, jumping, throwing, tug-of-war, decathlon, pentathlon)
• Gymnastics sports (gymnastics, group gymnastics, weightlifting)
• Cycling
• Defense sports (boxing, fencing, shooting, wrestling)
• Equestrian events
• Aquatic sports (rowing, sailing, swimming)
• Modern pentathlon
• Games (football [soccer], tennis)

Optional Sports

• Archery, figure skating, golf, hockey (field), ice hockey, polo, rugby football, and skiing.

Regarding eligibility the following decisions were reached:

• Amateur regulations were to be drawn up by the International Federations (IFs) for each sport.
• All NOCs were to guarantee the amateur status of their athletes.
• An age limit for participation was abolished.
• Women’s competition was restricted to swimming and tennis, notably women were denied the right to compete in track & field athletics.
• Athletes could enter the Olympic Games only by representing a National Olympic Committee.
• Juries were to be set up by the IFs, with the officials coming mostly from the host nation.
• National medal tables were to be abolished.

National affiliations were also discussed, especially the cases of Bohemia and Finland, which were not fully independent. It was decided that a nation could give independence in sports to a territory of its nation. It was also decided that an athlete who had competed for one nation could not change allegiance, unless he had changed nationality due to a diplomatic convention or his nation had been subsumed within another nation.

The Congress also decided that athletes should take the Olympic Oath during the Opening Ceremony, while holding their national flags, and stating that they had never violated the definition of amateurism.

On 16 June Coubertin gave a speech in remembrance of the IOC’s founding 20 years earlier, and then distributed special objets d’art to French President Loubet, US President Teddy Roosevelt, and Sweden’s King Gustav V, in honor of the Games of 1900, 1904, and 1912.