The Aborted Project for the European Games in the 1960s and 1970s

Creating the European Games was a project that raised numerous cultural, sporting, Olympic and, above all, European questions. In 1965, during the Franco-German sports colloquium in Baden-Baden, Maurice Herzog introduced the idea of organizing the first European Games. The idea was met with great enthusiasm and quickly embraced by local stakeholders in the border cities of Mulhouse (France), Basel (Switzerland), and Freiburg (West Germany). A tripartite study group was set up to prepare a European Olympic bid for the Games in either 1970 or 1974. This Rhineland candidacy was built on local residents' embedded sense of belonging to the region, with cross-border cooperation being a centuries-old tradition for them. According to the study group, these initial European-level games would bring together the ideals of Olympism's father, Pierre de Coubertin, and those of the father of Europe, Jean Monnet. They also served to strengthen the postwar pro-European dynamic. Despite this, the project failed to garner unanimous support following opposition from the powerful International Association of Athletics Federations that was only willing to consider a form of preliminary games designed for the young.