Chris de Broglio

Chris de Broglio (14 May 1930 – 12 July 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 14 May 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.^{[citation needed]}

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 UTA, a French airline 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]

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