President Jacques Rogge stands down in September after 12 years at the helm of the International Olympic Committee (IOC) and many believe the successful launch of the Youth Olympic Games will stand as his crowning achievement.

"This is the legacy of your Presidency," said Ser Miang Ng, organiser of the first YOG in Singapore three years ago. "Thank you for your vision and your gift to the youth of the world."

As the host city for the 2018 is due to be chosen by the IOC in Lausanne on Thursday (July 4), many might be surprised to learn that there were competitions for school age youngsters in an Olympic setting almost 90 years ago.

The 1924 Paris Olympics were immortalised in the Oscar winning film Chariots of Fire, but little more than a week after Eric Liddell's gold medal in the 400 metres, the very same Stade de Colombes was the setting for children's events.which the French called "Jeux de L'Enfance".

After his Olympic exploits, Liddell returned to missionary work in China but would surely have been pleased to see the YMCA's growing involvement. The IOC President at the time was Baron Pierre de Coubertin, the founding father of the Modern Olympic Movement.

At pains to restore the Olympic programme after the Great War, Coubertin had forged a relationship with Ellsworth Brown, the Physical education secretary of the Central YMCA in the United States.

Brown and his colleagues had tried to establish the Olympic ideal in the Far East and wrote to say that "they had established a Kindergarten Olympics."

In 1920 Brown was invited to address the IOC Session in Antwerp shortly before the Olympic Games.The handwritten minutes of that meeting note "he made a very detailed speech," in which he put the YMCA's expertise physical education at the disposal of the IOC.

"The fundamental aim is to bring sports within the reach of every possible person in every possible country," he said.


Coubertin, in typical style "thanked him for his indefatigable devotion to the Olympic cause which he served with intelligence and zeal".

In 1921, Paris was selected as Olympic Host City for 1924 to commemorate the 30th anniversary of the founding of the IOC

The following year, Paris 1924 Organising secretary Frantz Reichel, reminded the IOC, "There had been plans to allow the YMCA to organise sports demonstrations at the Games."

Coubertin gave his approval "providing the IOC protocol was adhered to in all areas".

His enthusiasm was not surprising. Some 40 years earlier he had been inspired by visits to English public schools where sport targeted precisely the 14 to 18 age range that would later be used for the Youth Olympic Games.


The demonstrations planned for 1924 "had the goal of developing the physical constitution of children and achieve a perfect balance between physical moral and intellectual faculties."

They were included alongside pelota Basque, Canadian canoe and boxe Francaise, a type of kick boxing.

The man given the job of making it all work was Professor Louis Schroeder. He had been head of the gymnastics department at the YMCA College in Springfield, Illinois, but got to know the French through his service in the US Army. He coached the French at the 1920 Olympics in Antwerp.

Schroeder 's work delighted the organisers. "He succeeded in arranging a remarkable ensemble, comprising demonstrations, notable for their diversity and ingenious combinations," one official said.

Participants included boy scouts and cub scouts in France and America, schools from across France and YMCA Groups from the US, Italy and Great Britain.


The invitations to the London YMCA arrived during March 1924. Their Committee immediately voted "a grant of £25 towards the costs if a team could be assembled".

Each day at precisely 2.30pm, the programme began. The Ranelagh baseball club, set up in Paris by American expatriates, began proceedings against The Paris "All Stars", a specially chosen American team.

This was followed by a basketball match between Methodist Memorial and London YMCA.

Later there was cage ball. Similar to handball, it had been developed by Emmett Dunn Angell, a naval sports instructor for military use, but was adapted for younger participants.

"It solves the problem of an invigorating healthful, pleasurable competition in which no one is excluded," he claimed.

There were zig -zag races, relays with clubs and batons and demonstrations of dodge-ball.

"Each sport was minutely studied and adapted for each age group," said the organisers.

The British basketball team enjoyed "remarkable success, defeating, after hard games, three separate teams of Americans, French and Italians."

Volleyball involved various French towns and later, an international match involving French and American youngsters.

Sadly, the stands were almost empty, despite organisers inviting children along to swell numbers. "We should add that they followed the events passionately," they claimed.

Even so, organisers claimed, "The practice of these sports had remarkable results in the schools. These sports were not only demonstrated but taught and became popular immediately, to the great benefit of the young people."

Schroeder eventually returned to the US and later became a real estate agent. He mischievously delighted in telling reporters that he had been responsible for the "Olympic" debut of basketball and baseball.


In fact basketball was included on the Olympic programme in 1936, volleyball in 1964 and baseball achieved medal status in 1992, so it could be said that the Jeux de l'enfance did indirectly play a role in changing the programme.

In the late 1980s Jacques Rogge led the European Olympic Committees as they established "European Youth Olympic Days", designed to bring the youngsters together after a decade in which the Olympics had been blighted by successive boycotts.

When he became IOC President , Rogge described the YOG as "a challenge of combining elite sport, modern education and culture."

The celebrations in Singapore and Innsbruck - which hosted the first Winter Youth Olympic Games in 2012 - set great store on inclusiveness and friendship, the very philosophy of those Jeux de l'enfance.

Born in Hackney, a stone's throw from the 2012 Olympic Stadium, Philip Barker has worked as a television journalist for 25 years. He began his career with Trans World Sport, then as a reporter for Sky Sports News and the ITV breakfast programme. A regular Olympic pundit on BBC Radio, Sky News and TalkSPORT, he is associate editor of the Journal of Olympic History, has lectured at the National Olympic Academy and contributed extensively to Team GB publications.