When duty met wish: the recognition of the Francoist Spanish Olympic Committee by the IOC during the Civil War (1936–1939)

Abstract

ABSTRACT The predominant view in the reviewed literature on how the IOC dealt with the Spanish question during the Civil War is that a conservative, aristocratic IOC, ideologically close to the Spanish rebels, swiftly recognised the Francoist Spanish Olympic Committee (SOC) set up in November 1937 to the detriment of the Republican equivalent based in Barcelona; that is, the IOC took sides and somehow betrayed the legitimate Republican SOC. The IOC undeniably sympathised with the insurgents and empathised with the persecuted members of the Spanish Olympic movement. Yet at the same time, by officially recognising the SOC reconstituted in San Sebastián by the IOC's representatives in Spain, the IOC was fulfilling its duty in the legal sense, as according to their statutes, a national Olympic Committee was valid only if constituted or supported by the IOC delegates in the incumbent nation. Moreover, the Republican SOC was disbanded in July 1936. Both its president and its general secretary escaped abroad to avoid political persecution. The Spanish Olympic Movement, therefore, did not split into two branches during the Civil War; it simply disappeared from the Republican side, ignored by those in command, in contrast with the ‘Olympic proactivism’ of the Francoists.