Archive material reveals details of doomed People’s Olympiad
As London gears up for the Olympics opening ceremony, documents revealing details of the People’s Olympiad, which would have taken place 76 years ago this month in Barcelona, have gone online.
Archivists at the Modern Records Centre at the University of Warwick have uncovered and digitised programmes, letters and images from the 1936 Barcelona People’s Olympiad, an event set up in opposition to the Summer Olympics held that year in Berlin during the period of Nazi rule.
Despite gaining considerable support, the People’s Olympiad had to be cancelled due to the outbreak of the Spanish Civil War on July 17, 1936, just five days before the Olympiad was due to start.
Among the documents is a publicity poster for the People’s Olympiad; a programme; press cuttings; and letters of support.
A total of 6,000 athletes from 22 nations had registered for the People’s Olympiad, including sportsmen and women from the UK, the USA, the Netherlands, Belgium, Czechoslovakia, Denmark, Norway, Sweden and French Algeria. Teams from Germany and Italy had also signed up, made up of political exiles.