ABSTRACT
As International Olympic Committee (IOC) President Thomas Bach emphasized at the IOC Session in Monaco in December 2014, one of the IOC’s central tasks is the appreciation of the Olympic values to stress the uniqueness of the Olympic Movement. This includes the value of athletic excellence. This paper illustrates how the significance of athletic excellence was already inherent in the Ancient Olympic Games, how it was understood by Pierre de Coubertin, and how the IOC encountered undermining processes of it. Importantly, it is also demonstrated that without a contemporary and strategic adaptation of the idea of ‘athletic excellence’ the Olympic Movement would have been significantly weakened throughout different time periods. Hence, the continuation of the central idea ‘athletic excellence’ has occurred parallel to its constant transformation.
