Russian business magnate Alisher Usmanov has donated the original 1892 manuscript of the manifesto of the Olympics to the Olympic Museum in Lausanne, Switzerland.
Alisher Usmanov decided to donate the original 14-page copy of Pierre de Coubertin's speech, in which the French aristocrat first outlined his vision of the modern Olympic Games.
According to Sothebys, the said document was purchased at a New York auction for $8,806,500 in December 2019. It exceeded its estimated sale price by nearly $8 million and set the auction record for sporting memorabilia.
Usmanov, a former stakeholder in Arsenal who has an estimated net worth of $12.6 billion, is currently the president of the International Fencing Federation.
He said: "Pierre de Coubertin had a vision of a world united by athletic pursuits and not divided by confrontations and wars. I believe that the Olympic Museum is the most appropriate place to keep this priceless manuscript."
This is the first time that the manifesto has been displayed to the public, several months prior to the Tokyo 2020 Olympic Games.
In the speech, Coubertin envisions a world united by sporting competition, where athletics would do more to bring about peace than "telegraph, railways, the telephone, the passionate research in science, congresses and exhibitions" have.
Two years after delivering the speech in Paris, Coubertin founded the International Olympic Committee (IOC) and the first modern Games was staged in Athens, Greece in 1896.
He also came up with the Olympics' current motto of citius, altius, fortius, meaning "faster, higher stronger," a phrase he borrowed from his friend Henri Didon.
IOC president Thomas Bach said: "Today we are witnessing history. At one level, we are witness to this historic document, the manuscript of the speech that laid out the philosophical foundations of the Olympic Movement."
"On another level, we are witnessing a historic moment, with this manuscript returning to its Olympic home, the place where it belongs," Bach added.
