At a time when democratic societies are facing new challenges around the world, Baron Pierre de Coubertin reminds us that sport is essentially democratic.  No sports team can perform without cooperation between its players, which Coubertin often called ‘mutual assistance,’ or without a competitive team operating on the same principles.  The Baron believed the expansion of sport would facilitate the development of democracy around the world—and he was in favor of both.  This quote comes from the Baron’s “Letter to the Members of International Olympic Committee” in January 1919.  It calls their attention to the idea that their work in spreading sport was, in essence, helping to build a better world.

“Cooperation and competition, the two essential elements of any democratic society, rub shoulders in (athletic groups) ... Yet we must manage to arouse the need for sports in (the masses). The physical and moral health of the nations of the world depends on it.”