History of the USOPC

The creation of the U.S. Olympic & Paralympic Committee (USOPC) dates to 1894, the same year Pierre de Coubertin established the International Olympic Committee (IOC) and began forming his vision of the modern Olympic Movement. William Milligan Sloan and James Edward Sullivan formed a committee to organize U.S. participation in the inaugural modern Olympic Games. The organization was formally established as the American Olympic Association in 1921 and underwent several name changes before becoming the United States Olympic Committee (USOC) in 1961. In 2019, it became the U.S. Olympic & Paralympic Committee, reflecting its responsibility for both Olympic and Paralympic sport. A major change in the organization’s structure came with the Amateur Sports Act of 1978, later revised in 1998 to include Paralympic sport.