The archives captured some of the most iconic and curious moments in Olympic history from pictures of the first modern-era Games in Athens in 1896 to a sack race in St Louis, Missouri, eight years later.
Sitting in a basement at the International Olympic Committee’s (IOC) headquarters in Lausanne, France, about 33,000 hours of video, 500,000 pictures and 2,000 documents among other archives risked decay and being lost forever. However, after a seven-year and 30 million euro (US$33 million) conservation project involving experts from across the globe, the IOC has rescued much of its precious audiovisual archive.
“There was an urgency to save this legacy,” said Philippe Laurens, an official with the IOC’s Patrimonial Assets Management program, which spearheaded the project.
Photo: AFP
When the preservation effort was launched in 2007 under former IOC president Jacques Rogge, the organization discovered that a large portion of its archives faced destruction. Faded photographs were deteriorating and some films were being destroyed by the so-called “vinegar effect,” where chemicals in the films combined with moisture to cause corrosion.
While some of the video material remained in good condition, the hardware needed to play it had become obsolete, meaning the video needed to be reformatted to make it compatible with modern devices. A team of archivists first tried to identify all the available material, a job estimated to have taken 100,000 hours of work.
However, they uncovered images that had previously been unpublished. The group found a long tracking shot of the Eiffel Tower taken during the 1900 games in Paris, and spectacularly, footage of the victory lap Greek runner Spyridon Louis took after winning the marathon in 1896 in Athens.
The IOC worked with experts from Switzerland, France, Canada, the US and Thailand to document and repair the archives.
“Every day, between 40 and 125 photos and between 15 and 20 hours of recordings were treated,” Laurens said.
Some of the material required highly specific attention, like 400 hours of footage on 16mm and 35mm film that had to be recopied onto new film to be preserved for another century. In late 2012, the basement of the IOC headquarters that housed the archives flooded following heavy storms, raising fears that the project had suffered an unexpected setback. However, heavy storage safes protected the material from water damage and the restoration work continued.
The salvaged material includes audio recording of Olympic founder Pierre de Coubertin and scenes that are unlikely to be repeated at the Olympics again. In one such image, two wrestlers are shown grappling at the 1912 games in Stockholm, with a referee in the background wearing a sunhat and a trench coat.
The IOC has decided to make the material accessible to researchers and journalists who cover the Games.
“It is incumbent upon us to carry on the cultural heritage of more than a century of Olympic history left to us by our ancestors,” IOC director-general Christophe De Kepper said. “The legacy of the IOC can now withstand the test of time.”
For its conservation efforts, the IOC is to receive an award at the International Broadcasting Convention awards in September.
However, officials in Lausanne say that the work of preserving Games history will continue indefinitely.
Next year’s Olympics in Rio de Janeiro are expected to generate 3,500 hours of video and 40,000 pictures.
Bologna on Thursday advanced past Empoli to reach their first Coppa Italia final in more than half a century. Thijs Dallinga’s 87th-minute header earned Bologna a 2-1 win and his side advanced 5-1 on aggregate. Giovanni Fabbian opened the scoring for Bologna with a header seven minutes in. Then Viktor Kovalenko equalized for Empoli in the 30th minute by turning in a rebound to finish off a counterattack. Bologna won the first leg 3-0. In the May 14 final in Rome, Bologna are to face AC Milan, who eliminated city rivals Inter 4-1 on aggregate following a 3-0 win on Wednesday. Bologna last reached the
If the Wild finally break through and win their first playoff series in a decade, Minnesota’s top line likely will be the reason. They were all over the Golden Knights through the first two games of their NHL Western Conference quarter-finals series, which was 1-1 going back to Minnesota for Game 3 today. The Wild tied the series with a 5-2 win on Tuesday. Matt Boldy had three goals and an assist in the first two games, while Kirill Kaprizov produced two goals and three assists. Joel Eriksson Ek, who centers the line, has yet to get on the scoresheet. “I think the biggest
From a commemorative jersey to a stadium in his name, Argentine soccer organizers are planning a slew of tributes to their late “Captain” Pope Francis, eulogized as the ultimate team player. Tributes to the Argentine pontiff, a lifelong lover of the game, who died on Monday at the age of 88, have been peppered with soccer metaphors in his homeland. “Francisco. What a player,” the Argentine Football Federation (AFA) said, describing the first pope from Latin America and the southern hemisphere as a generational talent who “never hogged the ball” and who showed the world “the importance of having an Argentine captain,
Noelvi Marte on Sunday had seven RBIs and hit his first career grand slam with a drive off infielder Jorge Mateo, while Austin Wynn had a career-high six RBIs as the Cincinnati Reds scored their most runs in 26 years in a 24-2 rout of the Baltimore Orioles. Marte finished with five hits, including his eighth-inning homer off Mateo. Wynn hit a three-run homer in the ninth off catcher Gary Sanchez. Cincinnati scored its most runs since a 24-12 win against the Colorado Rockies on May 19, 1999, and finished with 25 hits. Baltimore allowed its most runs since a 30-3 loss to