Production and dissemination of knowledge on Olympism
The Brazilian Olympic Academy (AOB) is part of the Brazilian Olympic Committee (COB) and associated to the International Olympic Academy (IOA), with offices in Olympia, Greece. Its main focus is the production and dissemination of knowledge on Olympism from the stand point of the Brazilian background.
The AOB was founded on August 28, 1998 with the purpose of developing Olympic Education by means of studies and research conducted in academic institutions both in Brazil and abroad.
The events promoted by the AOB have as starting point the philosophical principles that were generated as of the ideals proposed near the end of the 19th century by Baron Pierre de Coubertin. The program has academic excellence at the top of its priorities and, like the International Olympic Academy, it highlights values such as solidarity and ethics in sports.
The AOB aims at studying and researching the Olympic Movement, its manifestations in Ancient and Modern times, its causes and effects in the areas of education, philosophy, society and politics. This way, it contributes with awareness raising and dissemination of the Olympic ideals.
The International Olympic Academy
In 1927, Baron Pierre de Coubertin was invited by the Greek government to receive a tribute in Olympia due to his initiative in recreating the Olympic Games. On that occasion, he talked to his friend Ioannis Chrysafis about the need to create an academic center dedicated to studying the Olympic Movement.
Since then, the conceiver of the Olympic Games of the Modern Age had the mindset that the Olympic Movement should not be diverted from its educational objectives. “I was not able to do what I wanted. I believe that a center of Olympic studies more than anything might help preserve and carry forward my work”, he said at the time.
Coubertin’s ideas were in agreement with the targets of the Greek Olympic Committee, who also wished to create an academic center and use it to establish sport values. The sudden deaths of Chrysafis (1930) and Coubertin (1937), however, frustrated the implementation of their ideas.
A while later, Ioannis Ketseas, a student of Chrysafis, and Carl Diem, a German citizen who loved the Olympic Movement, took the lead of the project. They had both worked in partnership in the first Torch Relay - from Olympia to Berlin, in 1936 – and decided to join forces once more and found a Center of Olympic Studies.
In 1938, Ketseas and Diem planned the creation of an institution called International Olympic Academy (IOA) and forwarded their idea to the Greek Olympic Committee (GOC). During the 38th Session of the International Olympic Committee (IOC), in Cairo (Egypt), its Members were informed about the creation of the Olympic Academy in Greece (OAG). The following year, during the 39th Session, in London (England), it was decided that the institution would promote the Olympic ideals.
After the end of World War II, a memorandum on the operations of the Academy was submitted to the 41st Session of the IOC, in June 1947, in Stockholm (Sweden). On April 28, 1949, at the 44th Session of the IOC, in Rome (Italy), the creation of the IOA was unanimously approved, having the GOC in charge of its implementation and operation, under the aegis of the IOC. The International Olympic Academy was officially founded on June 14, 1961.
Since then, many actions were conceived, like for example the International Sessions for Young Participants. The IOA progressively implemented other educational programs focusing issues of the Olympic Movement. Nowadays, over 40 different events are conducted every year in the facilities of the Academy in Olympia.