Tribute to Professor Dr. Norbert Müller

The global UIPM family is in deep mourning after the untimely passing of one of the most admired experts and passionate thinkers and advocates for the Olympic movement, Professor Dr. Norbert Müller, who died February 16th, at the age of 75.

Prof. Dr. Müller was one of the foremost global scholars of Pierre de Coubertin stretching all the way back to the 1970s when he wrote his dissertation on Baron de Coubertin, the father of the Modern Olympic Games and creator of Modern Pentathlon.

For fully four decades Dr. Prof. Müller had been a passionate and dedicated intellectual support to the UIPM and was a member of the UIPM’s Pierre De Coubertin Commission up until his death. Since 1994 Prof. Dr. Müller had served on the IOC Commission for Culture and Olympic Heritage, alongside UIPM President Dr. Klaus Schormann.

Emeritus Professor in Sport Sciences at the Johannes Gutenberg University in Mainz (GER), Prof. Dr. Müller specialized in the study of Olympism and the impact of the Olympic movement around the world. He was also a former President of the International Pierre de Coubertin Committee.

Former colleagues from across the Olympic movement and the academic world paid tribute to Prof. Dr. Müller recalling a scholar who was “one of the most pure and true members of our Olympic Family” and someone who “made a remarkable contribution to the Olympic movement”.

Prof. Dr. Müller died surrounded by his three children after a long battle with illness. The UIPM extends its deepest sympathies to all of Prof. Müller’s surviving family and friends. His impact and legacy shall be remembered for decades to come.

UIPM President Dr. Schormann paid the following tribute to Prof. Dr. Müller: “We have all lost a very close colleague. I have lost one of my best and dearest friends, with whom I have shared the philosophy of Pierre de Coubertin for over 40 years."