Talk:Pierre de Coubertin medal

==Not a medal, but an award== I sugest this subject should be grouped into "award", and not a "medal". The main difference is, of course, that this award is given by opinion & judgement, and not by competition. -DePiep 20:01, 29 July 2005 (UTC)
 * Good thoughts, but the IOC itself refers to this as the Pierre de Coubertin Medal. See here (search for "Pierre de Coubertin Medal"). I think what the official awarding body calls this takes some precedence. --Deathphoenix 20:40, 29 July 2005 (UTC)
 * Thanks for your reply. But I do not think we should copy their (IOC's) opinion. We are independent. (I knew a country called ".. Democratic Republic" etc.). This is not an Olympic medal in the sense of, eh, an Olympic medal. I think it is an Olympic symbol, like the flame, the flag etc. -DePiep
 * You have a good point there, but I think that since they issue the actual award itself, we should leave it as what they name it. A "medal" can mean anything, since there's no official designation for what constitutes an award and what constitutes a medal (or what constitutes a trophy, for that matter). I suggest a compromise: I say we should leave the title as "Pierre de Coubertin medal", but we can define it as an award. In other words, right now, the opening sentence says is The Pierre de Coubertin medal (also known as the De Coubertin medal or the True Spirit of Sportsmanship medal) is a special medal given...
 * How about we change this first sentence to say The Pierre de Coubertin medal (also known as the De Coubertin medal or the True Spirit of Sportsmanship medal) is a special award given... But only that one. The award itself is an actual medal, so I don't see anything wrong with leaving it as medal, but here, at least we explicitly state that it is an award. What do you think? Oh, and one more thing. It's not a medal in the sense of the gold, silver, or bronze medals, I agree. However, it is actually considered to be better. It's much more rare, and to be given this award is very much in line with the original spirit of sportsmanship that the Olympics are supposed to represent. --Deathphoenix 00:17, 30 July 2005 (UTC)
 * First thing: agree, I didn't think about changing their name(s). Article name stays '... medal' =OK (I could have been clearer indeed).
 * Second thing: let's describe it as a 'award' (or so) as proposed. By giving it a different category + description, it is separated by logic. That's my idea too. Whether it's more or less important than a medal-from-competition - no subject to me. This one is awarded by judgement primarily (only), and thus very politic (POV by IOC). (0f course, we know about figure-skating & judgement, but alas). -DePiep 10:38, 1 August 2005 (UTC)
 * Oh, I see, you were talking about Categories. Hmmm... well, Category:Olympic medals is pretty bare, so I think that either that category be left as is, renamed to Category:Olympic awards (but only if we get a consensus to do so), or deleted entirely. --Deathphoenix 00:46, 2 August 2005 (UTC)
 * Sorry, I do not get your text here. Indeed, cat:Olympic medal should be kept unchanged, for the other articles (about medals-by-competition). A new cat "Olympic awards" doesn't seem a good idea, because I can only see one article (ie this one). Maybe create cat:Olympic symbols, including flag, ceremonies, rings, etc.? -DePiep 13:21, 6 August 2005 (UTC)

Not awarded by the International Olympic Committee... awarded by the CFIP, and just named after Pierre de Coubertin
Read this carefully: http://www.olympic.org/uk/passion/museum/temporary/exhibition_uk.asp?type=0&id=41 The CFIP (Comite Internationale pour le Fair Play) is the organization that dreamed up the idea of awards for fair play, and named their highest honor after Pierre de Coubertin. They have other awards named after other people. All of their awards go to athletes, teams or organizations anywhere (not just Olympians) who exhibit the values of fair play. The first recipient happened to be an Olympian, and many others have been Olympians, but not all. It's understandable that people assume the Pierre de Coubertin Medal (sometimes called the Trophy) is part of the Olympics, but I think it's not. The CFIP web site lists a handful of partner organizations, one of which is the IOC. The list of past award winners is at http://www.fairplayinternational.org/winners.php. The IOC likes the fact that de Lima and others have won the Pierre de Coubertin Medal, but they don't claim to be the ones awarding the medal!

Unless somebody can find a list of winners at http://www.olympic.org, or some other source which shows that the Pierre de Coubertin Medal is awarded by the IOC, I think the article should be changed. Petershank (talk) 16:24, 25 August 2008 (UTC)

I think the article links the wrong Franz Jonas -evilmousse

Category:Olympic symbols

Two awards?
When doing some research for an article on Raymond Gafner, I noticed that a) there is no online evidence of him ever winning the award, and b) apparently there are two different awards or two categories of winners: there are the athletes who get the extremely rare award for exceptional fair play: Long, Zatopek, Monti, Lernieuw and de Lima, and then there are the officials (IOC members or members of an organising committee), who get the award a lot easier and for completely different reasons, namely "for exceptional services rendered to the cause of the Olympic Movement for many years", and is awarded to not only Klee, Jonas, Eccles and apparently Gafner, but also to (at least) Avery Brundage, Mautner Markhof, and others see page 9. Does anyone know more about this or have more info on this? I'll leav the article as it is for now, but I think some changes wil be necessary. Fram 12:44, 21 August 2007 (UTC)


 * Hello, here's a source which states Gafner received the award from the IOC Executive Board. Parutakupiu 17:34, 21 August 2007 (UTC)


 * Thank you very much, I missed that one! From reading the reason why someone gets the medal, it sure looks like there are two different medals, one for the sporters and one for the organizers... Fram 07:01, 22 August 2007 (UTC)


 * I noticed the same basic thing. Note the text on this page ("given by the International Olympic Committee to those athletes who demonstrate the spirit of sportsmanship in Olympic events." and the text on Raymond Gafner ("pays tribute to those who, through their teaching, research and writing of Intellectual works, have contributed to the promotion of Olympism in the spirit of Pierre de Coubertin").  It sure seems like there's two different categories, or criteria, or something. 98.216.109.205 (talk) 17:38, 21 April 2008 (UTC)

Or is it three awards?
 * The "True Sportsmanship Award" - Long, Monti, etc.
 * The medal for services to the Olympic Movement:
 * From Olympic Review 1969 (linked to by Fram above):
 * "The President, Dr. Drimmel, announced that the Osterreichische Olympische Committee has founded a special award for outstanding merits in the Olympic Movement, bearing the name of Pierre de Coubertin. He passed the first medal in gold to the Federal President of Austria ... (that's Franz Jonas)
 * The Pierre de Coubertin Medal in gold has also been awarded to the IOC President, Mr. Avery Brundage, the former IOC member Mautner Markhof, the Minister of Education Dr. Piffl-Percevic, the OOC President Dr. Drimmel and OOC Hon. Secretary-General Edgar Fried."


 * The medal for academic work about the Olympic Movement:
 * From Journal of Olympic History, Volume 10, Dec 2001-Jan 2002:
 * "The medal, which was created in 1997, is a tribute to people and institutions with a pedagogical and educational calling who through their teaching, research and writing of academic works, in the spirit of Pierre de Coubertin, help to promote Olympism."
 * ''"The recipients are: IOC President Juan Antonio Samaranch (ESP) [1997]; Léon Stukelj (SLO) [1999, posthumous]; Raymond Gafner (SUI) [1999]; H.R.H. Prince Rainier (MON) [2000]; Joao Havelange (BRA)[2000]; Giovanni Agnelli (ITA) [2000]; Alain Danet (FRA) [2000]; Kurt Furgler (SUI) [2000]; Henry Kissinger (USA) [2000]; Yoshiaki Tsutsumi (JAP) [2000]; Emil Zatopek (CZE) [at the funerary ceremony on December 6th 2000, in Prague). Judge Kéba Mbaye (SEN) [2001]; Rodolphe Leising (SUI) [2001]; and Wolf Lyberg (SWE) [2001].

This is ridiculous. The IOC website seems to be rather lacking in clarification as well. I propose that this page should just be about those who have received the medal for sportsmanship. I can't find a definitive list anywhere but from the list we have already in the article it seems to be just Long, Monti, Lemieux, Umaga and Lima. There may even be a different one for Umaga as his sportsmanship was not at the Olympics itself. The rest should definitely be removed from the list as they received a different award. --217.44.66.26 (talk) —Preceding undated comment was added at 19:51, 10 August 2008 (UTC)

There's also the possibility of confusion with the Pierre de Coubertin Trophy awarded by the International Fair Play Committee. It started in 1964 and the first trophy awardee was Monti but I don't think it's the same thing as a Pierre de Coubertin Medal. I wouldn't swear to that though. 77.103.174.16 (talk) 13:28, 11 August 2008 (UTC)


 * The IOC definitely declared that Lima was awarded the Pierre de Coubertin Medal in Athens and he's not listed as being awarded the de Coubertin trophy by the IFP committee so it must be different. Whether it was the same medal as those awarded to the others I don't know but I suspect Umaga got on this list by confusion with his award of a de Coubertin Trophy. I've added a tag to the article asking for citations to resolve the confusion. --Spondoolicks (talk) 10:01, 12 August 2008 (UTC) (Those two anon edits above were me as well)

Olympic events?
The opening paragraph says that the award is given to athletes "who demonstrate the spirit of sportsmanship in Olympic events". But tana Umaga recieved the award for rugby union, which hasn't been an olympic sport since 1924. So is the opening paragraph incorrect or is rugby still counted as an olympic event? Basement12 (talk) 16:13, 9 August 2008 (UTC)

Umaga received the award for extraordinary sportsmanship in a Rugby Union Test Match against Wales where he stopped play to ensure the safety of an injured player, despite the advanced position of his team. There should be a better explanation in the article. 99.19.96.155 mpbx (talk) 04:46, 5 April 2009 (UTC)

"kilates" vs "carats"
Is there a source for the hidden note that "kilates" was actually the word that Jesse Owens used? Joyous! | Talk 19:30, 16 August 2008 (UTC)
 * I don't know but Luz Long has the same quote, but uses "karat" (with a K, since apparently that spelling is usual in the US). There's not much in it in terms of Google hits, so who knows? Given that "kilates" is uncommon in English, my inclination would be to say that it's that word which is more in need of sourcing, and that an (unsourced) hidden comment is not sufficient. Loganberry (Talk) 20:48, 18 May 2009 (UTC)
 * I've changed the wording to "karat." If there's another concern, we can talk it out here. Thanks, Loganberry, for your comment. Joyous! | Talk 00:25, 19 May 2009 (UTC)
 * Looks absolutely fine to me. Sillyfolkboy (talk) (edits) WIKIPROJECT ATHLETICS NEEDS YOU!  17:59, 19 May 2009 (UTC)

My name is Ragna Long and I'm the daughter in law of Luz Long. I did the research for our biographie about Luz' life and by that chance found the quotations about Jesse in Englisch and it was always the word "carat" - J.O.qoutation:"It took a lot of courage for him to befriend me in front of Hitler. You can melt down all the medals and cups I have and they wouldn't be a plating on the twenty-four carat friendship that I felt for Luz Long at that moment." — Preceding unsigned comment added by 2003:E3:BF0F:DC0D:5027:2960:23D2:B077 (talk) 13:49, 24 August 2018 (UTC)

Luz Long
Is there any good evidence that Luz Long really received this medal? In the German wikipedia, he was removed because no good evidence could be found... — Preceding unsigned comment added by 138.246.2.233 (talk) 17:13, 5 September 2013 (UTC) My father in law Luz Long did never get the Pierre de Coubertin medal posthum in 1964.My husband did write the biography about his father and I did make the research for five years for this book. It is published in 2015 by the arete-verlag hildesheim. We got in contact with IOC, DLV, DOSB and others and there was no proof about it. Everyone knows, when he or his family gets an Award, that there would be the family informed and it would be mentionend in the newspaper. Luz Long was 1964 still well known in Germany. Ragna Long — Preceding unsigned comment added by 2003:E3:BF0F:DC0D:5027:2960:23D2:B077 (talk) 13:43, 24 August 2018 (UTC)

Some evidences MachoCarioca (talk) 19:20, 4 January 2014 (UTC)

Edited German flag to reflect that which represented Germany at the date of the event, rather than the date of the award. Cplbeaudoin (talk) 19:41, 24 August 2016 (UTC)

Boyan Radev and Xia Geng
I think Bulgarian wrestler Boyan Radev won it too in 2009. MachoCarioca (talk) 18:48, 4 January 2014 (UTC)

Xia Geng, mayor of Qingdao, China, too, in the same year.. MachoCarioca (talk) 19:03, 4 January 2014 (UTC)

And it looks like a lot of people was awarded with this medal too: IOC President Juan Antonio Samaranch (ESP) [1997]. Léon Stukelj (SLO) [1999, posthumous]; Raymond Gafner (SUI) [1999]. H.R.H. Prince Rainier (MON) [2000]; Joao Havelange (BRA)[2000]; Giovanni Agnelli (ITA) [2000]; Alain Danet (FRA) [2000]; Kurt Furgler (SUI) [2000]; Henry Kissinger (USA) [2000]; Yoshiaki Tsutsumi (JAP) [2000]; Emil Zatopek (CZE) [at the funerary ceremony on December 6th 2000, in Prague). Judge Kéba Mbaye (SEN) [2001];; Rodolphe Leising (SUI) [2001]; and Wolf Lyberg (SWE) [2001]. MachoCarioca (talk) 19:09, 4 January 2014 (UTC)

A case for listing why each recipient was awarded the Pierre de Coubertin medal?
Given that the medal is awarded for exceptional sportsmanship, is there a case for including a description of the incident (or sequence of events) for which each medal was awarded? 86.14.9.87 (talk) 01:40, 3 February 2014 (UTC)
 * That would make sense, yes. -- Lejman (talk) 00:38, 22 August 2016 (UTC)

2016 Awards - from the Olympic website
This Wikipedia article keeps getting edited along with the 2016 USA Olympic medal counts on whether or not both D'Agostino and Hamblin were awarded. According to the Olympics they were both awarded yesterday: https://www.olympic.org/news/fair-play-awards-recognise-true-olympic-champions-in-sportsmanship

I haven't updated the page, but this seems the most reliable source. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 50.80.240.165 (talk) 02:45, 22 August 2016 (UTC)


 * This seems to be the same confusion mentioned above - there are two different awards. Both Hamblin and D'Agostino were awarded the Fair Play Trophy (seen in the picture in the article above). But a number of WP:RS are also reporting that Hamblin has been awarded the PdC medal, although some are saying this is not confirmed yet. The whole article needs some work done on clarifying the differences between the various awards. Melcous (talk) 03:54, 22 August 2016 (UTC)


 * I agree. The Guardian have now updated their article, but its still a little unclear. According to International Fair Play Committee they award three medals, one of which is the similarly named Pierre de Coubertin World Fair Play Trophy. Is this what these athletes received? If so I can see how the confusion arose, and this article needs a hatnote for disambiguation. Derek Andrews (talk) 17:23, 22 August 2016 (UTC)

This page is causing global confusion by conflating two different awards, one for sportsmanship and one for support of the Olympic Movement
As several others have commented, there is a Pierre de Coubertin Award given by the International Fair Play Committee (CIFP) for sportsmanship. According CIFP, this award has been given since 1965 and the first to receive it was Eugenio Monti. I submit that this is the actual award for sportsmanship. It is sometimes given to Olympic Games competitors and is sometimes mentioned by the International Olympic Committee (IOC), which is pleased when it is given to competitors in the Games, but is not their award to give.

There is also a Pierre de Coubertin Medal given by the IOC for support of the Olympic Movement, particularly through teaching but apparently in practice through many nonathletic endeavors. This medal was established in 1997. This fact is mentioned in the 2013 report of the Australian Olympic Committee, which lists Harvey's award as this type. A list of recipients from 1997 to 2001 and description of the medal can be found in this newsletter of the International Society of Olympic Historians. An image of an actual medal can be found in an auction catalogue. I submit that this is the award given to benefactors of the Olympic Movement and is the true Pierre de Coubertin Medal.

We are now seeing a great deal of public confusion as journalists are not quite sure what to call the award given to 2016 Olympic Games 5000m runners Abbey D'Agostino and Nikki Hamblin. Doubtless some of this confusion is caused by this Wikipedia page, which purports to canonize that there is a single Pierre de Coubertin Medal given only 17 times.

Abbot.x (talk) 19:41, 22 August 2016 (UTC)
 * I'll add to this that Vanderlei de Lima was definitely awarded the Pierre de Coubertin medal (as mentioned at the 2016 Opening Ceremony and easily checked by a Google image search), that this medal was awarded by the IOC, and that the reason given in the press at the time was in part "fair play". Perhaps this was an exceptional reason for awarding this medal, or perhaps there is a separate Pierre de Coubertin medal for fair play that is awarded even more rarely than this article indicates. This article needs work in any case, but journalists should really have heeded the "additional citations needed" banner. 62.249.160.48 (talk) 20:03, 22 August 2016 (UTC)


 * Feel free to work on the article to improve it. The Rambling Man (talk) 20:13, 22 August 2016 (UTC)


 * I would have liked to, as I find the subject (or, at least, the claimed subject) interesting, but I have been unable to find sources of sufficient quality to feel comfortable removing this amount of content from Wikipedia.62.249.160.48 (talk) 20:34, 22 August 2016 (UTC)


 * Well if you believe what you've written there should be no problem removing the factually inaccurate items. The Rambling Man (talk) 20:36, 22 August 2016 (UTC)
 * It shouldn't, but I'm less sure I believe that. Have a nice day. 62.249.160.48 (talk) 20:51, 22 August 2016 (UTC)
 * So what medal received recently the 2 women? Cause I'm confused too... :-/ 2.87.87.76 (talk) 12:38, 23 August 2016 (UTC)


 * This is what the de Coubertin trophy looks like. MaxBrowne (talk) 14:43, 23 August 2016 (UTC)


 * That image provides further evidence that New Zealand rubgy captain Tana Umaga (who is pictured) received an award from CIFP, not IOC.Abbot.x (talk) 14:58, 23 August 2016 (UTC)


 * This is the trophy/medal Tana Umaga is holding in that pic. Obviously it is not the same as this trophy being presented to Nikki Hamblin. On the other hand the Brazilian Vanderlei Cordeiro de Lima clearly is holding the same medal that has been awarded to sports administrators, including Henry Kissinger. All very confusing. MaxBrowne (talk) 00:38, 24 August 2016 (UTC)
 * My current best guess is that the award given to Hamblin, D'Agostino and the Norwegian handball team is one created by the CIFP specifically for the Rio Olympics. Unless someone can find another picture of a trophy resembling the one being presented to Hamblin. MaxBrowne (talk) 05:26, 24 August 2016 (UTC)
 * That sounds reasonable, though perhaps the CIFP award was designed for all 2016 individual acts of sportsmanship awards rather than the 2016 Olympic Games. I have not been able to find another example of the grasping hands trophy. As stated above, Vanderlei Cordeiro de Lima clearly was awarded the same medal given to educators and administrators and it clearly came from IOC. His award being explained as it was has always struck me as, frankly, a bit odd. Being the victim of fan interference is regrettable, but it is not really what tends to be characterized as fair play or sportsmanship. And the marathoner and his national committee did not simply let it go but instead lodged a protest that was ultimately unsuccessful. (Contrast that with the award to the Norwegian handballers for declining to pursue a protest for the failure to call a technical violation.) IOC felt it needed to give de Lima a big medal so shoehorned him into the Pierre de Coubertin category. (After all, it was ultimately event organizers' fault that a fan could so easily interfere.) This seems to have contributed to what I now see as the misconception that IOC awards the Pierre de Coubertin Medal for sportsmanship. In fact, it doesn't. It did so exactly once, as a consolation prize to de Lima (which did not entirely satisfy him), but otherwise gives that medal to sports "educators," who in practice are usually administrators and bureaucrats who help the Olympic Movement. But in general the award for sportsmanship named for Pierre de Coubertin is CIFP's sportsmanship award.Abbot.x (talk) 15:28, 24 August 2016 (UTC)


 * Some research into the quote early in the article: The source currently redirects to a page on Olympic sports, but this is an archived version of the page quoted. In this article the beginnings of International Fair Play Committee and the Pierre de Coubertin trophy is presented, before it unhelpfully goes on to conflate trophy and medal by stating Eugonio Monti received the first Pierre de Coubertin medal for sportsmanship followed by our "noblest honour" quote and "most precious hardware any Olympian can own"... 62.249.160.48 (talk) 18:00, 23 August 2016 (UTC)
 * I hope this will help all in a better way to undestand about the fair play award 2.87.87.76 (talk) 21:18, 23 August 2016 (UTC)


 * — Preceding unsigned comment added by 2.87.87.76 (talk) 21:20, 23 August 2016 (UTC)

Henry Kissinger
Google search results produce no article nor is the medal mentioned on his Wiki article. KyuuA4 (Talk:キュウ) 22:18, 11 April 2021 (UTC)