The Willibald Gebhardt Institute (WGI) is an International Institute of Research and Knowledge Transfer in the fields of Sport and Sport Sciences. It was established as a non-governmental and non-profit institution at the city of Essen (Germany) on May 5th 1992. According to the constitution of the WGI its purpose is to support human tasks and social targets of physical activities including health-related fitness and ethical-morale principles in sport activities. This purpose is linked with a holistic approach of education for a well-rounded individual, particularly for children and adolescents in their main settings of living and development: in families, at schools, within sport clubs in the context of recreational and elite sports.
Karl August Willibald Gebhardt was born on January 17th, 1861 in Berlin and also died there on April 30th, 1921. He was a supporter of modern international Olympic games and founder of the Olympic movement in Germany, even though the modern international Olympic movement is most often only associated with Pierre de Coubertin.
The Olympic Study Day 2025 at the Institute of Sports Science at the University of Münster, organized by the Willibald Gebhardt Institute in cooperation with the Department of Education and Culture in Sport, was very well received. Over 100 participants attended in person or online to listen intently to the two speakers' fascinating presentations on the topic of “Asian Perspectives on the Olympic ...
Cand. phil. Yoonkyu Song has published an article online first in the Asian Journal of Sport History & Culture together with WGI Vice President for Olympic Sports, Michael Krüger. The title of the ...
WGI Vice-President Prof. i.R. Dr. Michael Krüger actively participated in the International German Gymnastics Festival in Leipzig at the end of May. In addition to his active participation in the mixed ...
In the post-Olympic year 2025, around one year after the end of the 2024 Summer Olympics in Paris, the Willibald Gebhardt Institute, as one of two German Olympic Studies Centers, will once again host an ...