Sports
Avery Brundage
1887–1975 · sports administrator, former athlete
Detroit-born fifth president of the International Olympic Committee, the only American to hold the post, who led the Olympic movement from 1952 to 1972.
- Born
Detroit, Michigan- Died
Garmisch-Partenkirchen, West Germany
aged 87- Detroit years
- 1887–1892
- Field
- Sports
01 / The Detroit story
The Detroit story
Brundage was born in Detroit in 1887 to a working-class family, but his time in the city was brief: when he was five his father moved the family to Chicago and soon abandoned them, and Brundage grew up there under relatives' care with no documented later ties to Detroit. He became a track star at the University of Illinois, competed in the 1912 Olympics alongside Jim Thorpe, and built a fortune in construction before turning to sports administration. He rose through American Olympic organizations, controversially fought off a boycott of the 1936 Berlin Games, and in 1952 became the first American and first non-European president of the IOC, a post he held for twenty years, remembered above all for his rigid defense of amateurism and his handling of the 1972 Munich Games.
Highlights
- Born in Detroit in 1887
- Competed in the pentathlon and decathlon at the 1912 Summer Olympics
- President of the International Olympic Committee, 1952–1972
- The only American ever to hold the IOC presidency
- Built a personal art collection now held by the Art Institute of Chicago