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Georges de Saint-Clair
Georges de Saint-Clair (16 February 1845 – 12 February 1910) was a French author and sports leader who is widely regarded as one of the most important figures in the development of sport in France, founding the forerunner of the Union des Sociétés Françaises de Sports Athlétiques in 1887, and then serving the entity as its first president from 1889 until 1890.[1][2] Early lifeGeorges de Saint-Clair was born in Geneva on 16 February 1845, to a French father and a Scottish mother, being educated there in the Anglo-Saxon tradition, thus developing a deep interest in sport.[1] During the Franco-Prussian War in 1870, he enlisted for France and distinguished himself by his courage at Beaune-la-Rolande, Orléans, and Villersexel, before being attached as an orderly official, and standard-bearer of General Gaston de Galliffet.[3] After the signing of peace, he settled permanently in his father's homeland to devote himself fully to the development of sport in France and introduce a taste for physical exercise in said country.[1][3] Sporting careerRacing Club de FranceIn June 1884, Saint-Clair was elected the Secretary General of Racing Club,[1] which had been founded two years earlier by the students and teachers from the Lycée Condorcet in Paris.[4][5] He structured the club and not only made it known (first articles in Le Figaro in 1885), but also turned it into a serious club,[5] and thus, in late 1884, Racing was officially recognized as a multi-sport club, and the following year, on 21 November 1885, he renamed it to Racing Club de France, to distinguish itself from the Racing Club of Belgium.[4][5] Saint-Clair was one of the first defenders of amateurism in France, where foot races modeled on horse racing events had already been endowed with cash prizes since the mid-19th century; he created regulations based on amateurism from across the Channel, which he was one of the few French people to know thanks to his Anglo-Saxon upbringing.[1] This approach put an end to Racing's tournaments with cash prizes, but he had higher ambitions than just his own club, so together with Ernest Demay, he also launched a national campaign to "purify" athletics, and their action was crowned with success and they also ended up obtaining a ban on betting on athletic races.[citation needed] In addition to British regulations, the club also adopted the uniforms and equipment in force in England, and he then took the initiative to remove the pseudonyms in force at the time,[a] and replaced them with the athletes' surnames, which helped increase the popularity of the athletes, and therefore of the sport.[1][5] Saint-Clair was, therefore, crucial in laying the foundations of modern sport, being considered the first architect of the development of French sport.[1] In 1886, Saint-Clair obtained from the Paris municipal council the concession of a plot of land that soon became the famous Croix-Catelan, which allowed the club to install its sports facilities in the heart of the Bois de Boulogne in the 16th arrondissement of Paris, a place that quickly caught the attention of the aristocrats and the French press.[1][5] That same year, he instigated the holding of the first international athletics meeting there and, on 26 December, organized the first cross-country race on the grounds of the city of Ville-d'Avray.[1] USFSA
Saint-Clair about the creation of the USFSA.[1]
Saint-Clair also established contacts in France and abroad, and on 1 November 1886, he organized a triangular Franco-Anglo-Belgian meeting in Paris, during which he established relations with the AAA (Amateur Athletic Association), which were very useful to him the following year, since on 29 January 1887, they came together to create the Union des Sociétés Françaises de Courses ("Union of French Running Societies"), which brought together the first clubs.[1][5] On 29 April 1888, USFC organized the first-ever French Athletics Championships, which was held at the Croix-Catelan.[6] This entity quickly accepted other sports into its ranks, and two years later, on 31 January 1889, this structure expanded its views by becoming the Union des Sociétés Françaises de Sports Athlétiques ("Union of French Athletic Sports Societies"), the first sports governing body in France.[1] Saint-Clair was its first president, among a team of young leaders who were on average twenty years younger than him, such as Frantz Reichel, Jules Marcadet, Charles Brennus, and Pierre de Coubertin,[5] with the latter describing him as "his most devoted and intelligent collaborator".[1] However, family reasons forced him to leave Paris abruptly and settle in the provinces, thus gradually breaking off his collaboration with the USFSA and disappearing from the sporting scene, so it then fell to Reichel and Coubertin to continue his work,[1] with the latter becoming USFSA's secretary general and publishing the first French monthly review on athletics La Revue athlétique on 25 January 1890.[5] In 1894, he was a member of Coubertin's team in his quest to create the modern Olympic Games.[7] Writing career Saint-Clair was one of sports' first theoreticians because, in 1887, he published with P. Arnould: Les sports athlétiques et les exercices de plein air ("Sports Athletics and Outdoor Exercises"), a work of 172 pages.[1][5] This book is now considered the first French sports book.[1] In 1890, Saint-Clair published the first official rules of Rugby.[1] In 1894, Saint-Clair, together with Edouard Saint-Chaffray, published a book called Le rugby en 1894, which was reissued in 2017.[8] DeathSaint-Clair died in Paris on 12 February 1910, at the age of 64,[2][3] the victim of a long illness, and his funeral took place in Versailles, where he was buried in the Saint-Louis cemetery, after a ceremony at the Temple des Batignolles.[3] Following his death, the local press stated that he was "the sportsman to whom we can rightly attribute the great athletic movement which, at the present time, seems to be leading new generations".[3] At the time of his death, the USFSA had a thousand clubs and more than 1,500 members.[3] WorksLes sports athlétiques et les exercices de plein air (1887) Les règles du rugby (1890)[1] Le rugby en 1894 (1894)[2] NotesReferences
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