In a lecture in Lausanne in 1928, Baron Pierre de Coubertin sought to draw a parallel between the ‘intense physical pleasure’ that adults seek through the senses and the pleasures that sport produces.  The end result of both, he suggested, is a calming effect that delivers satisfaction. The Baron was obviously not a prude—and as he sought to describe the benefits and joys of sports to an adult audience, he waded into the realm of sensual passion.  This quote is compressed from a passage in the Baron’s speech on the “Educational Use of Athletic Activity,” delivered to commemorate the launch of the International Bureau of Sports Pedagogy. After he retired from the presidency of the International Olympic Committee in 1925, Coubertin initiated various efforts to draw adults into physical education and the joys of sport long after they had left their schooling behind.  The new Bureau was part of that effort.

"Sport produces physical enjoyment, i.e. intense physical pleasure. Many sportsmen will attest that under certain circumstances, this pleasure takes on the imperative and disturbing character of sensual passion. Clearly, not everyone experiences this. It requires a certain sense of equanimity, and the ardor and absence of cares or self-control issues at the heart of any sensual exhilaration. But some swimmers, riders, fencers, and gymnasts will tell you that they know that exhilaration well. The intoxication of the wave, the gallop, the struggle, or the trapeze is just as strong as conventional drunkenness. It is both real and definite, and it is superior to the "other" form in that it is never artificially provoked by the imagination, and rarely disappointed through satiety. It calms the senses not only through fatigue, but through satisfaction, as well. It does more than just neutralize the senses; it satisfies them."