L' Europe latine dans les olympismes alternatifs

Abstract

During the interwar period, the Olympic movement have difficulties to integrate women and workers into its midst. These are structured into national and international federations that organised alternative games to defend the legitimacy of women’s sport and promote the worker’s sport culture. This article proposes to consider the social, cultural and political dimension of this competitions by taking Latin Europe as a framework for analysis. The organisation of the games reveals the link between the associative, institutional and political network and the importance of sports infrastructures. The analysis of the results and the composition of the delegation supports a comparative history of sports margins in countries with different political trajectories. As a field for sports expression of the margins, alternative games bring out fears and disapproving speeches and reveal the social and political tensions of the interwar period : the place of women, the struggle of worker’s movements against fascism.