French Dominican friar created the motto for the Olympic Games

ACI Prensa Staff, Jul 26, 2024 / 17:45 pm (CNA).

The motto of the modern Olympic Games, “Faster, Higher, Stronger,” was coined by French Dominican friar Louis Henri Didon, who became friends with the founder of the modern Olympic Games, Baron Pierre de Coubertin, five years before the 1896 Athens Games.

The motto, originally formulated in Latin as “Citius, Altius, Fortius,” was used before the modern Olympic movement at St. Albert the Great School in Paris, where the Dominican friar was the principal.

Born in 1840, Didon entered the Rondeau Minor Seminary in Grenoble, France, beginning at the age of nine, and during his youth, he stood out for his ability as an athlete. After visiting the Carthusian monastery in Grenoble, he decided to follow a religious vocation and took the habit of the Order of Preachers (Dominicans) at the age of 16. Six years later, after a period of formation in Rome, he was ordained a priest at age 22.

Military chaplain, prisoner, and refugee

Didon soon gained fame as a preacher. During the brief Franco-Prussian War, which broke out in July 1870, he was a military chaplain and for a time was held as a prisoner. When he fell ill, he ended up as a refugee in Geneva, Switzerland. From there he was sent to Marseille, where he resumed his sometimes controversial preaching activity, which led to his being sent to Corsica in 1880. 

A decade later he was appointed principal of St. Albert the Great School in Paris where he established sports as part of the school’s educational program and promoted sports competition. This decision was the result of belief in the value of sports and the contact he had had with Pierre de Coubertin since 1891.

In the first race they organized, the Dominican decided to embroider on the school flag the famous motto, which would become an Olympic motto in 1894, during the first Olympic Congress held in Paris in 1894.

Two years later, Athens hosted the first Olympic Games, which have since been held every four years, interrupted only three times due to World Wars I and II (1916, 1940, and 1944) and postponed from 2020 to 2021 due to the COVID-19 pandemic.

This story was first published by ACI Prensa, CNA’s Spanish-language news partner. It has been translated and adapted by CNA.