The Mediterranean Games and the creation of the International Committee of the Mediterranean Games (ICMG), solutions to the rivalries of the Mediterranean sports world? (1947-1961)

Abstract

In 1923, Pierre de Coubertin expressed the wish for African Games but they were quickly rejected by British and French colonial guardianship (Deville Danthu 1997; Chatziefstathiou & Henry 2012). After the Second World War, the realization of this project is still not possible since Africa remains under the colonial yoke, except Middle East and North Africa region which become independent. The Mediterranean space can seize sport by creating NOC to represent itself as a world (Becker 2006) and integrate the Olympic movement (Adami 2004). Thus, in 1947, the Egyptian Olympic member Mohamed Taher Pasha proposed the project of Mediterranean Games (MG) causing fear of competition at the Olympic Games. Indeed, by 1951, the Regional Games were exploding (Erraïs & Fatès 1989) and the following year, the IOC, newly chaired by the American Avery Brundage, regulated and controlled the Regional Games through Olympic sponsorship (Guttmann 2002). However, if an organizing committee allows the first three editions to take place (Egypt, 1951; Spain, 1955; Lebanon, 1959), on the other hand the International Committee of the Mediterranean Games (ICMG) was created in 1961 under the impetus of Olympic member Gabriel Gemayel (Lebanon). Can the ICMG therefore be an institutional solution (Dobry 2009) to the rivalries of this new Mediterranean area? From the archives of the CEO-CIO, the ICMG, and the press, we will examine on the one hand the context of the creation of these MG reflecting the balance of power between the world of Mediterranean sport and the Olympic world and on the other hand we will analyze how the institutionalization of the ICMG can be an instrument of Arab and third-party influence-A worldist whose aim is to overcome these rivalries.