As we have noted in several previous posts, Baron Pierre de Coubertin believed that the international growth of sport would help spread democracy and its egalitarian ideals around the world.  Always bold in his public proclamations, the baron made this point in a speech delivered before the King of Belgium in Antwerp’s Town Hall in August of 1920.  The title of the speech:  “Sport is King!”  Imagine the reaction of the monarch when the baron proclaimed that the throne of the future belonged to sport.

“Nature has distributed strength very unequally among men ... Thus the elimination of man-made social distinctions and the affirmation of nature's aristocratic caprices go hand in hand. The seeds of the principles that form the basis and point of departure for any rational form of democracy are found in the practice of athletics.”