From the very beginning, Baron Pierre de Coubertin insisted that the International Olympic Committee operate with complete autonomy, totally independent of political or commercial influence and pressures.  He greatly admired the independence of the Stewards of the Royal Henley Regatta, the committee that governed the world’s most famous rowing competition.  He borrowed their principles of self-recruitment to ensure the enduring free agency of the members of the International Olympic Committee, who are selected to this day by the IOC and appointed as representatives “to” their countries, not from their countries.  Today’s quote, which comes from “The Trustees of the Olympic Ideal,” which appeared in the Olympic Review in 1908, captures the essence of Coubertin’s perspective on ensuring the independence of the IOC, the supreme authority over the Olympic Movement.

“The best way of safeguarding liberty and serving democracy is not always to throw everything open to election, but, on the contrary, to maintain within the great electoral ocean islets where, in certain special areas, continuity can be assured by independent and stable effort ... We are not encroaching upon society’s privileges; we are not a technical police council. We are simply the trustees of the Olympic ideal.”