ABSTRACT
The Swiss city of Lausanne, anointed the world’s Olympic capital in 1994, is home to the International Olympic Committee (IOC) and its showcase of Olympism, Le Musée Olympique (LMO). Founded in 1993, the museum has since assumed a major role in publicly promoting the principles and philosophies of Olympism, as well as the historical infl uences that have shaped the Olympic Games.1 As the museum’s promotional literature puts it, LMO ‘is much more than a traditional museum. It is a genuine centre of Olympism’. And its goal is ‘to make visitors aware of the breadth and the importance of the Olympic Movement’.2 The purpose of the present chapter is to evaluate this deployment of museology to inspirit the cause of Olympic values and principles, which in turn underpins the ideology of Olympism and the IOC’s imprimatur as both institutional custodian and moral gatekeeper of the Olympic Movement. It will, in short, analyse how LMO is now a fulcrum through which the ideals of Olympism are trumpeted, and from which the Olympic Games and the Olympic Movement are venerated. In a conceptual sense the chapter explores evangelistic and mythopoeic displays and narratives.3 In the case of LMO, this involves the deployment of exhibits and literature as vehicles by which to proselytise the Olympic creed and eulogise the Olympic Movement. LMO is, in short, more than just a museum; it is also a secular temple where Olympic pilgrims are invited to converge, a place where the faithful can be immersed in the Olympic ‘spirit’. Since the Samaranch era, this has involved a marriage of the spirit of capitalism with the spirit of sport. Devotion to the commercialised Olympic Movement therefore involves loyalty to the Olympic brand, and by association to the sponsors that keep the Olympic fl ame burning. LMO is, therefore, not only a hub for the display of Olympic artefacts to visitors, it is also a manifold space in which the stated purposes, ideals and universal values of Olympism are coveted, where the global status and worldwide importance of the Olympic Movement are saluted, and where the corporate dominion of Olympic sponsors is made self-evidently benefi cent.
