World without Coubertin? Simulations, hypotheses, projections

Taking up the issue of Olympism, we cannot ignore Pierre de Coubertin, who designed its general organizational and axiological framework. From the perspective over a hundred years of time, we can say that out of many possible scenarios for the development of sport, this was done with the Olympic idea in the lead role. However, the purpose of the study is to answer the questions: What would be the world and sport without Coubertin? Has the future global success of the Games been the result of Coubertin’s conceptual and organizational activities or the expression of the needs of the objective world? Two conceptions were used in the paper: the individualistic concept assumes that the motive power of all processes can be an individual human initiative and socio-deterministic construct, in which individual entities are only pawns of historical necessity. Considering the different socio-cultural conditions of the world at the turn of the nineteenth and twentieth centuries and modern times, Coubertin’s merits include the implementation of the ancient Olympic idea in modern terms, the introduction of ethical principles into sport through Olympic Education, the internationalization of the local idea of the Greek Games and the organizational form of the International Olympic Committee.