Chris de Broglio
Chris de Broglio (May 14, 1930 – July 12, 2014) was a Mauritian-born South African weightlifter and anti-Apartheid activist. De Broglio, who advocated for an end to racism in sports, played a key role within the movement to expel South Africa from the Olympics in 1970, during the height of country's Apartheid era.[1] He joined with Dennis Brutus to co-found the South African Non-Racial Olympic Committee (San-Roc).[1] According to Nelson Mandela, the expulsion of South Africa in the 1970s revitalized the anti-Apartheid movement at the time and ultimately led to the end of Apartheid twenty years later.[1]
De Broglio was born Marie Christian Dubruel de Broglio in Mauritius on May 14, 1930, to Maurice and Suzanne de Broglio.[1] He took up weightlifting after a longterm, mysterious illness originally left him smaller than other kids his age.[1] De Broglio originally moved to South Africa to study accounting.
De Broglio was a South African weightlifting champion from 1950 until 1962.[1] He competed at the World Championships in Sweden in 1958 and Vienna, Austria, in 1961.[1] However, he was disturbed that white and black weightlifters were forbidden from competing or training together in South Africa.[1] During his tenure as the chairman and secretary of both the Natal and Transvaal Weightlifting Associations, De Broglio organized multi-racial weightlifting competitions, which were illegal under Apartheid.[1]
In the early 1960s, De Broglio, who was employed by Air France at the time, arranged for the chairman of the South African Non-Racial Olympic Committee (San-Roc), John Harris, to secretly leave South Africa.[1] Harris testified against the Apartheid system before the International Olympic Committee (IOC), which resulted in the exclusion of South Africa from participation in the 1964 Summer Olympics.[1] (Harris would later be executed for his role in the bombing of a white-only section of the Johannesburg Park Station). In 1963, De Broglio's organization, San-Roc, successfully lobbied for the suspension of South Africa from international football.[1] De Broglio was placed under state surveillance and forced into exile in London, settling in Twickenham.[1] There, De Broglio and others reestablished San-Roc in the basement of the Portman Court Hotel in Marble Arch.[1] De Broglio organized a San-Roc boycott of the 1968 Summer Olympics in Mexico City by a number of African and Asian nations.[1]
In 1997, De Broglio was awarded the Olympic Order for his work against racism in athletics and his defense of the Olympic Charter.[1]
De Broglio lived in Corsica during his later life.[1] He frequented the gym until he was 80 years old. He died on July 12, 2014, at the age of 84.[1] His first wife, June Von Solms, whom he married in 1954 and with whom he had six children, died in 1982.[1] He was survived by his children and his second wife, Renee de Broglio, whom he married in 1988.[1]