Viktor Balck

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Viktor Gustaf Balck between 1890 and 1900

Viktor Gustaf Balck , KCMG (born April 25, 1844 in Karlskrona , † May 31, 1928 in Stockholm ) was a Swedish officer, army sports teacher and sports official . He was a founding member of the International Olympic Committee and is often referred to as the father of Swedish sport .

Military career

In his youth Balck was a seaman before he attended the cadet institute of the Navy in Karlberg Castle . After a short time he switched to the army institute. He was an active fencer and gymnast . After the final exam he stayed as a gymnastics teacher before he was promoted to lieutenant in Närke in 1866 and captain in the same regiment in 1884 . Most of the time, however, he spent as a gymnastics teacher or responsible for military physical exercises. From 1885 to 1909 he was appointed head of military gymnastics at the Swedish Central Institute for Gymnastics ( Gymnastik- och idrottshögskolan ), the oldest sports university in the world, and from 1907 to 1909 rector of the university. In 1904 he was promoted to colonel , in 1909 he retired and in 1914 he was promoted to general of the reserve (honorary).

Sports guide

From 1866 to 1868 Balck studied at the Swedish Central Institute for Gymnastics ( Gymnastik- och idrottshögskolan ). Both his military and his sporting career were based on the Central Institute. Since physical exercise and sport were backward in international comparison outside of the big cities in Sweden, he campaigned for the spread of sport from the 1870s on by founding sports clubs and associations. He became a major leader in the young sports movement.

He represented Sweden at the founding congress of the IOC in Paris in 1894, brought the Olympic Games to Stockholm in 1912 and was head of the organizing committee. In 1913 he became Vice President of the Swedish National Olympic Committee from 1913 to 1928. He was the driving force behind the Nordic Games , which he organized from 1901 and saw as a link between the drifting Nordic states. From 1894 to 1924 he was President of the International Skating Union . Here he had u. a. also invented the Balck skates . For his services he received the Order of St. Michael and St. George, one of the highest English orders of merit. He died in Stockholm of pneumonia .

Individual evidence

  1. ^ Arnd Krüger : Neo-Olympism between nationalism and internationalism. Horst Ueberhorst (Hrsg.): History of physical exercises. Volume 3/1, Bartels & Wernitz, Berlin 1980, pp. 522-568
  2. ↑ Goksøyr, Matti. Phases and functions of nationalism: Norway's utilization of international sport in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. International Journal of the History of Sport 12.2 (1995): 125-146.
  3. ↑ Nordisk familjebok , supplement volume 34 (1922), sp. 433: Balck, Viktor Gustaf (Swedish)
personal data
SURNAME Balck, Viktor
ALTERNATIVE NAMES Balck, Viktor Gustaf (full name)
BRIEF DESCRIPTION Swedish officer, responsible for military physical exercises, founding member of the International Olympic Committee (IOC)
DATE OF BIRTH April 25, 1844
PLACE OF BIRTH Karlskrona
DATE OF DEATH May 31, 1928
Place of death Stockholm