People's Olympiad

The People's Olympiad (Catalan: Olimpíada Popular, Spanish: Olimpiada Popular) was a planned international multi-sport event that was intended to take place in 1936 in Barcelona, Catalonia within the Spanish Republic. It was conceived as a protest event against the 1936 Summer Olympics being held in Berlin, which was then under control of the Nazi Party.

Despite gaining support from some athletes, and most significantly the Soviet Union and the Communist International organization, the People's Olympiad was never held, as a result of the outbreak of the Spanish Civil War. Fifty-six years later, Barcelona hosted the 1992 Summer Olympics.

The People's Olympiad was the first ever global attempt to boycott a modern Olympics.

Background
In 1931, the International Olympic Committee had selected Berlin, then the capital of the Weimar Republic, to host the 1936 Summer Olympics at the 29th IOC Session in Barcelona. Berlin had defeated Barcelona, which was also vying to host the games, by 43 votes to 16. During the same year, Spain had adopted a republican constitution, with King Alfonso XIII going into exile, and Catalonia was declared an autonomous region within the Spanish Republic.

Following the 1936 general election in Spain, the Catalonia's pro-People's Sports Committee (Catalan: Comitè Català pro-Esport Popular, CCPEP), supported by the Government of Catalonia, as well as by the newly elected Spanish Popular Front government, advocated for the boycott of Spain to the Berlin Olympics in Nazi Germany and the organization of an alternative games in Barcelona. Invitations were made to many different countries, and it was planned to use the hotels built for the 1929 Barcelona International Exposition as an Olympic-style Village. The games were scheduled to be held from July 19 to 26 and would have therefore ended six days prior to the start of the Berlin games. In addition to the usual sporting events, the Barcelona games would also have featured chess, folkdancing, music and theatre.

A total of 6,000 athletes from 49 nations registered for the games. The largest contingents of athletes came from the United States, the United Kingdom, the Netherlands, Belgium, Czechoslovakia, Denmark, Norway, Sweden and French Algeria. There were also teams from Germany and Italy made up of political exiles from those countries. Teams representing Jewish exiles, Alsace, Catalonia (the host), Galicia, and the Basque Country also registered. The Soviet Union, under the rule of Joseph Stalin, had been holding its own version of the Olympics, known as the Spartakiad, organised by Red Sport International. Despite this, the Soviets agreed to attend the Barcelona competition.

Many of the athletes were sent by trade unions, workers' clubs and associations, socialist and communist parties, and left-wing groups, rather than by state-sponsored committees.

With the outbreak of the Spanish Civil War just as the games were to begin, the alternate games were hastily cancelled. Some athletes never made it to Barcelona as the borders had been closed, while many who were in the city for the beginning of the games made a hasty exit. However, at least 200 of the athletes, such as Clara Thalmann, remained in Spain and joined workers' militias that were organized to defend the Second Spanish Republic against the nationalists.

Opening ceremony, lodging and competition
The proposed opening ceremony of the Olympiad included the parades of exiled Jews from Europe, as well as of people from North Africa under colonization, representing state and stateless nations. A song composed by a German Jew whose lyrics would be written by a Catalan poet would play in the background of the ceremony. Women would be allowed to compete at more games than the International Olympic Committee did at the time, in Berlin.

There was no Olympic Village-like complex available due to the time shortness – of three months – to plan the Olympiad. As a result of that, athletes first had to stay in hotels and hostels and then in the reassigned Hotel Olympic. Unforeseen greater visiting audiences for the games forced the Catalan government to try and to find more lodging for athletes in a rush.