War & Peace Quote by Juan Antonio Samaranch

“Struggled” is doing the diplomatic heavy lifting here. Samaranch frames the IOC’s mission as a noble project repeatedly thwarted by reality, not as an institution that has sometimes actively bargained with that reality. It’s a clever piece of reputational jujitsu: acknowledge failure in a way that sounds like honesty, then smuggle in the idea that the ideals themselves remain pristine.

The list - fraternity, friendship, peace, universal understanding - reads like Olympic branding at full volume, a litany designed to feel self-evident. But the subtext is institutional: if the IOC has “struggled,” then critics should judge it as an aspirational mediator rather than a power broker. The quote quietly asks for patience, even indulgence, because the work is allegedly bigger than any scandal or compromise.

Context matters because Samaranch didn’t speak from the stands; he spoke from the top. His tenure modernized the Olympics into a global entertainment-and-sponsorship machine while navigating boycotts, Cold War politics, and recurring accusations about corruption and authoritarian pageantry. In that light, the line functions as preemptive defense: a way to place the IOC above the messiness it benefits from, as if commerce, nationalism, and propaganda are natural disasters the committee must weather.

What makes the sentence work is its institutional mood lighting. It converts contradictions - peace festivals hosted by repressive states, “universal understanding” amid exclusion and inequality - into a heroic narrative of perseverance. The struggle becomes the story, and the IOC becomes the protagonist.