Modern sport, modernism and the cultural manifesto: de Coubertin's Revue Olympique

This article studies the Modern Olympic Movement within the cultural framework of early twentieth-century aesthetics. By examining the first 13 years of the Revue Olympique, the bond between sport and ideals of beauty emerges as a powerful indicator of a broader socio-cultural discourse. Discourse analysis exposes the Revue Olympique as homogeneous and coherent device of praxis that located the Olympic Movement and the genre of sport festival it promoted among the dominant ideas about beauty, art and culture of this era. It functioned as a type of cultural manifesto for Pierre de Coubertin's international Olympic Movement.