Tribulations and Achievements: The Early History of Olympism in Argentina

Arguably, from the industrial revolution until after the Second World War, Great Britain played the dominant role in the development and diffusion of modern sport. ¹ Introduced by colonial authorities, military men, merchants and educators, modern sport rapidly spread across the world. Argentina, whose nineteenth-century economy was heavily influenced by British entrepreneurs, was no exception to this rule. Cricket was first introduced during the failed 1806 and 1807 British invasions of Buenos Aires. In the next decade British expatriates, mostly English, systematized the practice of their sports in Argentina. ² Although it took some years for the newly independent nation to accept these novel practices, clubs started to flourish. By the end of the nineteenth century modern sport had become an integral part of Argentine culture. As early as the mid-1880s, Thomas Turner, an English traveller, observed that English expatriates ‘have established a few healthy institutions in Buenos Aires — cricket, football, rowing, polo’. ³ By the end of the nineteenth century, of course, modern sport had seduced enthusiasts on all continents.