Juan Antonio Samaranch
IOC president 1980–2001
Juan Antonio Samaranch y Torelló, 1st Marquess of Samaranch (Catalan: Joan Antoni Samaranch i Torelló, Catalan pronunciation: [ʒuˈan ənˈtɔni səməˈɾaŋ]; 17 July 1920 – 21 April 2010) was a Spanish sports administrator under the Franco regime (1973–1977) who served as the seventh president of the International Olympic Committee (IOC) from 1980 to 2001.
Life
Juan Antonio Samaranch was born on 17 July 1920 in Barcelona as the third of six children in a wealthy Catalan family. In 1938, during the Spanish Civil War, he was conscripted to serve as a medical assistant in the Spanish Republican Armed Forces. Samaranch's political sympathies were for the Nationalists, and he deserted to Nationalist-held territory by way of France. On 1 December 1955, he married Maria Teresa Salisachs Rowe. With Salisachs Rowe, he had two children: Juan Antonio Junior, currently a member of the International Olympic Committee, and Maria Teresa.
Samaranch started his studies at the Business School of Barcelona, which he completed in London and the US, and obtained a diploma from the Barcelona Higher Institute of Business Studies (IESE). During his studies, he practised roller hockey, for which he created World Championships in 1951 and which the Spanish team won. A member of the Falange in Francoist Spain, Samaranch held various political positions in municipal and national government: he became a city councilor for the city of Barcelona responsible for sport in 1954, then delegate for physical education and sport in the Spanish Parliament in 1967. Samaranch was appointed president of the provincial council of Barcelona in 1973, until he resigned four years later, when he was appointed Ambassador of Spain to the Soviet Union and Mongolia after the resumption of diplomatic relations between the two countries.
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