Alice Joséphine Marie Milliat née Million (5 May 1884 – 19 May 1957) was a pioneer of

women's sport Women and girls have participated in sports, physical Physical fitness, fitness, and exercise throughout history. However, the extent of their involvement has varied depending on factors such as country, time, geographical location, and level o ...

. Her lobbying on behalf of female athletes led to the accelerated inclusion of more women's events in the

Olympic Games The modern Olympic Games (Olympics; ) are the world's preeminent international Olympic sports, sporting events. They feature summer and winter sports competitions in which thousands of athletes from around the world participate in a Multi-s ...

. A member of Fémina Sport, a club founded in 1911, Milliat helped form the Fédération Française Sportive Féminine in 1917, becoming treasurer and, in March 1919, its president. In 1921 she helped organise the 1921 Women's World Games, and then the

Women's World Games The Women's World Games were the first international women's sports events in track and field. The games were held four times between 1922 and 1934. They were established by Alice Milliat and the Fédération Sportive Féminine Internationale ...

, which ran for four editions from

1922 Events January * January 7 – Dáil Éireann (Irish Republic), Dáil Éireann, the parliament of the Irish Republic, ratifies the Anglo-Irish Treaty by 64–57 votes. * January 10 – Arthur Griffith is elected President of Dáil Éirean ...

until

1934 Events January–February * January 1 – The International Telecommunication Union, a specialist agency of the League of Nations, is established. * January 15 – The 8.0 1934 Nepal–Bihar earthquake, Nepal–Bihar earthquake strik ...

. She also managed a French

women's association football Women's association football, more commonly known as women's football or women's soccer, is the team sport of association football played by women. It is played at the professional level in multiple countries, and about 200 national teams partic ...

team that toured the United Kingdom in 1920. On 8 March 2021, a commemorative statue of Milliat was unveiled at the French Olympic Committee's headquarters in Paris.

Early life

Alice Joséphine Marie Million was born on 5 May 1884 in

Nantes Nantes (, ; ; or ; ) is a city in the Loire-Atlantique department of France on the Loire, from the Atlantic Ocean, Atlantic coast. The city is the List of communes in France with over 20,000 inhabitants, sixth largest in France, with a pop ...

, the eldest of five children. Her parents were grocers. Her mother later worked as a seamstress and her father was employed in an office. In 1904, Milliat went to England. There she married Joseph Milliat, who was also from Nantes. They had no children, and he died in 1908. Whilst in England, Milliat took up

rowing Rowing is the act of propelling a human-powered watercraft using the sweeping motions of oars to displace water and generate reactional propulsion. Rowing is functionally similar to paddling, but rowing requires oars to be mechanically a ...

. After her husband's death, she travelled widely, developing language skills that enabled her to become a translator when, following the outbreak of the First World War, she returned to France. She also participated in swimming and

field hockey Field hockey (or simply referred to as hockey in some countries where ice hockey is not popular) is a team sport structured in standard hockey format, in which each team plays with 11 players in total, made up of 10 field players and a goalk ...

Formation of the Fédération Sportive Féminine Internationale

Pierre de Coubertin Charles Pierre de Frédy, Baron de Coubertin (; born Pierre de Frédy; 1 January 1863 – 2 September 1937), also known as Pierre de Coubertin and Baron de Coubertin, was a French educator and historian, co-founder of the International Olympic ...

is credited with reviving the Olympic Games and founding the International Olympic Committee (IOC) in 1894. 1900 was the first Olympics to allow women athletes, but only in golf and tennis. Eventually, the Olympics integrated women's swimming and other events into the games. However, track and field events for women remained absent from the Olympics. A member of Fémina Sport, a club founded in 1911, Milliat helped form the Fédération Française Sportive Féminine in 1917, becoming treasurer and, in March 1919, its president. In 1919, Milliat asked the

International Association of Athletics Federations World Athletics, formerly known as the International Amateur Athletic Federation and International Association of Athletics Federations and formerly abbreviated as the IAAF, is the international governing body for the sport of athletics, coverin ...

(IAAF) to include women's

track and field athletics Track and field (or athletics in British English) is a sport that includes Competition#Sports, athletic contests based on running, jumping, and throwing skills. The name used in North America is derived from where the sport takes place, a ru ...

events in the 1924 Olympic Games, but they refused. She then became involved in organising the

1921 Women's Olympiad The 1921 Women's Olympiad and was the first international women's sports event, a 5-day multi-sport event organised by Alice Milliat and held on 24–31 March 1921 in Monte Carlo at the International Sporting Club of Monaco. The tourname ...

in Monte Carlo, an event regarded as a response to the refusal include women's events in the Olympics. Sport historian Florence Carpentier noted in 2018 that Milliat did not attend the 1921 event, and believes that Milliat created the Fédération Sportive Féminine Internationale (FSFI) and instituted the

1922 Women's World Games The 1922 Women's World Games (French Jeux Olympiques Féminins, also "Women's Olympic Games") were the first regular international Women's World Games and the first Track and field competitions for women. The tournament was held on a single ...

in opposition to the

1922 Women's Olympiad The 1922 Women's Olympiad ( and ) was the secondFrench Athletics Federation (FFA) archive records show that Marcel Delabre, vice-president of the FFA and chair of the 1921 Women's Olympiad organising committee, saw the Women's Olympiad as a means for the FFA to control women's athletics. The 1921 Women's Olympiad took place on a pigeon shooting field, in the absence of a running track. In 1922, 300 athletes competed, representing seven nations. Further editions of the Women's Olympiad were held in

1923 In Greece, this year contained only 352 days as 13 days was skipped to achieve the calendrical switch from Julian to Gregorian Calendar. It happened there that Wednesday, 15 February ''(Julian Calendar)'' was followed by Thursday, 1 March ' ...

and

1924 Events January * January 12 – Gopinath Saha shoots Ernest Day, whom he has mistaken for Sir Charles Tegart, the police commissioner of Calcutta, and is arrested soon after. * January 20–January 30, 30 – Kuomintang in Ch ...

. Meanwhile, in 1917, Milliat had organised a successful women's

association football Association football, more commonly known as football or soccer, is a team sport played between two teams of 11 Football player, players who almost exclusively use their feet to propel a Ball (association football), ball around a rectangular f ...

tournament, and in 1920 she assembled and managed a football team of women from Paris that toured the United Kingdom and, representing France, and played against the Dick, Kerr's Ladies in the first European international women's football tournament. From the early 1920s, she was a writer for French magazines including ''Le Soldat de Demain'' and '' L'Auto'', and promoted football for women in articles.

Women's World Games

In August 1922, the Jeux Olympiques Féminins (also known as the 1922 Women's World Games), regarded as the first Women's Olympics took place in Pershing Stadium in Paris and featured five teams, representing including the United States, Great Britain, Switzerland, Czechoslovakia and host country France. Eleven athletics events were conducted and the 20,000 strong crowd saw eighteen athletes break several world records. The choice of venue was influenced by Paris being the home city of Coubertin, who was among the most vocal opponents to women's participation in the Olympics, as Milliat wanted the games to be a showcase to the

International Olympic Committee The International Olympic Committee (IOC; , CIO) is the international, non-governmental, sports governing body of the modern Olympic Games. Founded in 1894 by Pierre de Coubertin and Demetrios Vikelas, it is based i ...

(IOC). When

Henri de Baillet-Latour Henri de Baillet-Latour, Count of Baillet-Latour (1 March 1876 – 6 January 1942) was a Belgian aristocrat and the third president of the International Olympic Committee (IOC). Early life Henri de Baillet-Latour was born in Brussels, Belgium, ...

succeeded Coubertin as head of the IOC, the intention was to hold the next event in his home country, but the Belgian organisers withdrew their participation. Infuriated by the use of the term 'Olympic Games', the IOC convinced Milliat and the FSFI to change the name of their event in exchange for adding 10 women's events to the 1928 Olympics. As such, the next edition of the event, held in

Gothenburg, Sweden Gothenburg ( ; ) is the second-largest city in Sweden, after the capital Stockholm, and the fifth-largest in the Nordic countries. Situated by the Kattegat on the west coast of Sweden, it is the gubernatorial seat of Västra Götaland County, ...

1926 In Turkey, the year technically contained only 352 days. As Friday, December 18, 1926 ''(Julian Calendar)'' was followed by Saturday, January 1, 1927 '' (Gregorian Calendar)''. 13 days were dropped to make the switch. Turkey thus became the ...

, was termed the

. Ten teams took part in this edition of the Games. Due to pressure from the FSFI, the IOC eventually integrated five women's track and field events into the Olympics in 1928. However, to Milliat, this was not enough, since men were allowed to compete in 22 events. The British women's team boycotted the Amsterdam games for the same reason. Two further World Games were held in

Prague Prague ( ; ) is the capital and List of cities and towns in the Czech Republic, largest city of the Czech Republic and the historical capital of Bohemia. Prague, located on the Vltava River, has a population of about 1.4 million, while its P ...

1930 Events January * January 15 – The Moon moves into its nearest point to Earth, called perigee, at the same time as its fullest phase of the Lunar Cycle. This is the closest moon distance at in recent history, and the next one will be on J ...

(featuring other sports in addition to athletics) and in London in

. After these games, Milliat issued an ultimatum: fully integrate the 1936 Olympics, or cede all women's participation to the FSFI. This led the IAAF to appoint a special commission to cooperate with the FSFI, which ceded control of international women's athletics to the IAAF in exchange for an expanded program and a recognition of records set in the Women's Games. Although the FSFI had staged events with an increasing number of participants, and expanded its membership from the initial five nations to at the 1922 Games to thirty countries in 1936, it never met again after the decision about the 1936 Olympics, and Milliat's engagement with women's sport ended. Under successive IOC presidents, the proportion of women competitors at the Olympics never rose above 15% until the 1970s. Milliat died in Paris on 19 May 1957.

Legacy

In 1934, Milliat spoke to an interviewer from the Women's Magazine ''Independent Woman''. In her statement, she advocated for women's suffrage in France. She believed women's suffrage would lead to greater support for women's sports. Carpentier believes that Milliat's feminist beliefs have been glossed over or ignored in earlier biographical accounts, and claims that these beliefs were central to inspiring Milliat's endeavours on behalf of women's sport. In a 1934 interview, Milliat said: The Fondation Alice Milliat was established in 2016 and promotes women's sport in France and the rest of Europe. There are gymnasiums named after Milliat in Bordeaux and in Paris. On 8 March 2021, a statue of Alice Milliat was unveiled at the French Olympic Committee's headquarters in Paris, in recognition of her efforts for the recognition of women's sports. In ''

The Times ''The Times'' is a British Newspaper#Daily, daily Newspaper#National, national newspaper based in London. It began in 1785 under the title ''The Daily Universal Register'', adopting its modern name on 1 January 1788. ''The Times'' and its si ...

'' later than month, Elgan Alderman wrote that the 1921 Women's World Games was a "seismic moment" for progress in women's sport at the Olympics, and that no-one had contributed more than Milliat in enabling the development. Mary Leigh and Thérèse M. Bonnin concluded in 1977 that without Milliat and the FSFI's efforts, track and field events at the Olympics would only have been opened to women much later.

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Milliat, Alice 1884 births 1957 deaths People from Nantes French football managers French female rowers French feminists French translators Women's World Games Female association football managers