Preserve the Olympic Ideal

Preserve the Olympic Ideal by the Amalgamated Lithographers of America, 1936.

Poster in favour of boycotting the Berlin Olympics. 

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The 1936 Olympics were held in Berlin and have become lodged in our collective consciousness as Jesse Owens, a Black American athlete, defied Nazi racial ideology and upset Adolf Hitler by winning four gold medals. However, less well known is that an alternative Olympics - the Olimpiada Popular.

The Olimpiada Popular was organised by the Comité Organizador de la Olimpiada Popular (COOP) as part of an international left-wing boycott of the Berlin games, which were recognised to be a propaganda tool for Nazi Germany. The games were originally set to begin on 22 July in Barcelona. The date was brought forward to 19 July, and the duration of the games extended, when the organisers realised there was far more interest than they had anticipated.

Up to 20,000 athletes were registered to take part. The participants included anti-fascist exiles from Nazi Germany and Fascist Italy, Jewish refugees, and delegations from colonized nations such as Algeria and Morrocco. There was a Basque team and a Catalan team. Unlike the official Olympics, where women were restricted to few events, the Olimpiada Popular offered more opportunities for female athletes and women’s organisations such as Mujeres Libres entered teams. Many of the athletes were selected by trade unions or socialist or communist parties rather than their respective national sporting committees.

Thousands of athletes and spectators were arriving in Barcelona for the Olimpiada when the event was cancelled because of the attempted military uprising.

During the heavy street fighting, which started at around 4am on 19 July and lasted until the following day, many of the athletes helped, making barricades etc and in the aftermath, at least 200 of the athletes stayed in Barcelona and joined the workers’ militias. Their participation in the militias symbolized the broader international struggle against fascism, pre-empting the role of foreign volunteers and the International Brigades (which many athletes joined) in the Civil War.