The purpose of this paper is to analyze Coubertin's concepts of "civilization" and "race," in order better to understand the anthropological foundations of his Olympism in general and to show that this Olympism has been a part of his "civilizing mission." His efforts for educational reform in France, his fervent philhellenism, his enthusiasm for the colonial endeavor, his engagements for popular education were all part of his "great work" of keeping social and international peace and of "uplifting mankind." He considered the "civilized part" of mankind threatened by moral and physical degeneration, while he saw the rest still in a state of "primitive" and inferior civilization. In his publications, we can reveal an ambiguous, racist period from 1900 to the end of the First World War, with many racist statements claiming the innate inferiority of non-whites on the one hand and on the other hand statements considering the educability of "races" other than the white race. The Olympic Games, which brought together the finest youth of the whole world every four years, symbolized for Coubertin an eternal spring of humankind, the eternal striving to better humanity. In Coubertin's mind, peoples at the stage of "half-savages" were not ready yet for this noble and elitist meeting. Also their games were not serious enough to be included in the Olympic Games that were to accomplish the athletic part of the civilizing mission. Today, the Olympic Games, as a legacy of the civilization mission, still promote Western or westernized sports exclusively, even though they claim to be a universal movement.