Juan Antonio Samaranch, the Marquis de Samaranch, the seventh President of the IOC from 1980-2001, died in his native Barcelona on 21 April 2010. Juan Antonio Samaranch Torrelo was born in Barcelona on 17 July 1920, the son of Francisco Samaranch Castro, a textile manufacturer, and Juana Torreló Malhevy. He received his education at business schools and the German College before the outbreak of the Spanish Civil War.
Samaranch briefly boxed under the name Kid Samaranch, and then competed in roller hockey. In 1950 he began his sports administrative career with the Executive Council of the International Federation of Roller Hockey. In 1954 he became Vice-President and in 1956 was appointed to the Spanish Olympic Committee. He was made a member of the IOC in 1966 and became President of the Spanish Olympic Committee in 1967. In 1974 he became an IOC Vice-President, a prelude to his tenure as Presidency, which began in Moscow in 1980.
Samaranch served as IOC President for 21 years, the second longest term after that of Pierre, Baron de Coubertin. He will also almost certainly be remembered as the most influential IOC President after Coubertin. When he took over the reins of the IOC, the organization was close to bankrupt. Samaranch made the group into a financially successful organization, by bringing in television rights fees to the IOC (previously they had been almost exclusively negotiated by the COJOs), and especially by helping institute the TOP Program, originally standing for The Olympic Programme, but now known as The Olympic Partners. The TOP Program, carried out in concert with ISOH Member Dick Pound, asked a small number of large corporations to become worldwide corporate partners of the IOC, but charged them large fees for this right. When Samaranch took over as President, it was becoming difficult to find cities to bid for the Olympics, witnessed especially by Los Angeles in 1984, which was the only bidder for those Olympics (it was LA’s third successive bid and everyone knew it was certain to win). The finances were too tenuous, but Samaranch’s fiscal expertise made the Olympic Games and Olympic Movement a commercially viable enterprise and by the end of his term, as many as 11 cities would bid for an Olympic Games, and it became necessary to limit the number of cities bidding. Samaranch will also be known for bringing the Olympic Games into the 20th Century, by eliminating many of the restrictions of amateurism and opening up the Olympics to professionals. His other great contributionas President lies in opening the IOC to women and making steps towards gender equality at the Olympics by increasing the number of sports and events for women.
Unfortunately, he will also be remembered for the Olympic Bribery Scandal that occurred on his watch during the fall and winter of 1998-99. It was an inopportune episode in Olympic History and Samaranch must bear some responsibility for it, as it occurred while he was President. By that time he was nearing the end of his reign as IOC President, and he could have stepped aside in 1997, and probably wished he had. But he weathered the storm, and instituted significant IOC reforms in response to several studies and reports that were done after the Scandal was revealed, one commissioned by him for the IOC and written by Dick Pound.
The International Society of Olympic Historians (ISOH) began in December 1991 and our first few years were also difficult financially. We had few members and no support from any outside sources. Our first President, Ian Buchanan, and I often opened our wallets to keep the journal being published. In July 1994, Ian and I flew to Lausanne, where we were joined by Wolf Lyberg. Wolf was a long-time friend of President Samaranch, and he helped shepherd us through a meeting with the President. At that meeting, Juan Antonio Samaranch, a student of Olympic History, made ISOH financially viable for the near future when he promised us IOC support.
In the spring of 2001, only a few months before the end of Samaranch’s Presidency, the ISOH Executive Committee, led by myself as President at the time, and accompanied by Ian, Tony Bijkerk, Wolf Lyberg, David Wallechinsky, and Karl Lennartz, again met in Lausanne with President Samaranch. While there we had our Executive Committee meeting, but Samaranch joined us for over an hour of the meeting, and then we all had a nice lunch together. At this meeting he increased the IOC stipend to ISOH, and guaranteed us financial support for the next few years. Samaranch further showed his interest and support of Olympic history when he enlisted David Wallechinsky and me as consultants to help the IOC when they were originally setting up their website in the late 1990s.
Juan Antonio Samaranch will leave a mixed legacy as President of the International Olympic Committee. In the United States he was reviled for his role in the Olympic Bribery Scandal, but that is a short-sighted view and one that misses all the good that he did for international sport. I believe that with the passage of time, he will be remembered more for what good he did, and not for that problem, which went far deeper than any personal involvement he may have had. For the International Society of Olympic Historians (ISOH), he will be remembered for his interest in Olympic History, his support of it, and especially for his support of our organization when it was sorely needed. We will miss him, as will all members of the Olympic Family.
– Bill Mallon
