Comité Olímpico De Portugal

The Olympic Committee of Portugal ( pt, Comité Olímpico de Portugal ; acronym: COP) is a non-profit organisation of public utility, which serves as the National Olympic Committee (NOC) for Portugal. It was founded on October 26, 1909, to ensure a timely, methodical and state-sponsored participation at the Games of the V Olympiad, in Stockholm. Thus, it was the 13th nation to join the Olympic Movement.

As a NOC, its responsibilities include the setup and management of a delegation for the Olympic Games, and fundraising to support Olympic-related sports development programmes, by cooperation with public and private entities. A universe of 64 national sports federations is assembled under the COP's wing as members with voting power. This intimate relationship with the federations helps carrying their interests close to the government and official organisms, and ensures their active and decisive intervention on the committee's internal affairs.

The current president is José Manuel Constantino, who was elected in 2013. Former president Fernando Lima Bello is the current Portuguese delegate at the International Olympic Committee (IOC).

History

Portugal had an official representative ( António de Lencastre) at the IOC, since 9 June 1906, whose proposal came directly from King Carlos I himself, a known sports-lover. Nevertheless, the country lacked a proper organisation that would handle exclusively with the logistics, fundings and preparations required for an Olympic participation. In this way, the COP's establishment on 26 October 1909, filled this "institutional hole". However, not everyone regards this date as the official Olympism's date of institution in Portugal. Sources defend the date when António de Lencastre accepted Pierre de Coubertin's offer (9 June 1906) as the real accession date to the Olympic Movement, which would make this nation the 10th to do it, not the 13th, as is. An edition of the newspaper "Sports Ilustrado", from May 4, 1912, even claims the COP's foundation on April 30 of that year, that is, three years later than what is the currently recognised date. It is uncertain whether 1912 is the true foundation year, but it is believed that this date was not adopted later on by the COP, so that Portugal would not lose its place on the IOC founding members' list

The COP was developed on the structure of the now-extinct ''Sociedade Promotora de Educação Física Nacional'' ( en, Society for the National Promotion of Physical Education) whose president, Jaime Mauperrin Santos, became the COP's first president. The primary goal for the committee's creation was to organise a mission to participate at the 1912 Summer Olympics in Sweden. Thus, between 1910 and 1912, the COP promoted the "Games for Olympic preparation", which were a renamed version of the "National Olympic Games". Finally, in 1912 this goal was fulfilled and the Games of the V Olympiad were Portugal's first. On August 14, 1919, the Portuguese Minister of Public Instruction signed a decree, officially recognizing the COP and granting it a subsidy.

In 1925, the COP organised the first "National Athletics Games" and the first "International Sports Games", which only allowed amateurs to take part. The aims of these games were the promotion of sports practice and cultural contact with other competitors, and the motivation of Portuguese athletes to prepare themselves for a participation at the 1928 Summer Olympics. The delegations at the 1932 and 1936 Summer Olympics were smaller than in previous Olympiads because of financial problems to which the government was not sensible. Nevertheless, in Berlin, Portugal conquered its third Olympic medal.

In 1939, during the 39th IOC Session, in London, the Portuguese member suggested the promotion of roller hockey to Olympic sport, however the committee delayed any decision. During World War II, the IOC, taking advantage of Portugal's neutrality, used its national committee as its correspondence transmitter for the other European NOCs. After the war, the relationship between the COP and government became tense when the latter tried to interfere with the NOC's autonomy. As response to COP's "disobedience", state funding was canceled and the committee members had to finance themselves the Olympic participation at the London Games. Surprisingly, this participation was the largest ever and the most rewarding at that time, with two medals and the first silver. The country's participation at the 1960 Games of Rome was unassured because of disagreements inside the COP structure. It was only decided on the last minute with a direct intervention of the IOC president Avery Brundage, on a visit to Lisbon.

In the following four years, the COP had two members elected for the newly created International Olympic Academy (1962) and started publishing its bimonthly