Big anniversary celebration: the Olympic Museum in Lausanne celebrates its 30th anniversary

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The museum’s history began long before it was founded thirty years ago. “When Pierre de Coubertin came to Lausanne in 1915, he already had a desire to create a museum,” Julia Thum, a cultural educator at the Olympic Museum, told Keystone-SDA. However, it would take decades for the project to be fully implemented.

Coubertin was a French baron who also founded the International Olympic Committee (IOC). The first collections brought together by the baron quickly took up a lot of space given the numerous donations. The museum’s development really took off when Juan Antonio Samaranch was elected president of the IOC in 1980. He had made the establishment of an Olympic Museum one of his priorities.

“The museum houses the largest and most comprehensive collection on the games,” says Thum. The special thing: since the 1984 Olympic Games in Los Angeles, the museum’s employees have been collecting objects and documents on site.

“Colleagues drive to the games, have contact with the athletes and ask if we can take over some of their equipment,” explains the cultural mediator. Previously, the museum worked through spontaneous or unsolicited donations or purchases.

In honor of the 30th anniversary, visitors can attend free film screenings on Saturday, June 24, and take a look behind the scenes of the museum. There are workshops and puzzles for children and a bicycle acrobatics act can be seen on the forecourt.

(SDA)

Source : Blick