Alisher Usmanov donates £6.8m Olympic manifesto to Olympic Games museum
The Russian billionaire Alisher Usmanov came out on Monday as the mystery buyer of the original 1892 Olympic manifesto, the most expensive piece of sports memorabilia ever sold at auction, when he donated it to the Olympic museum in Lausanne, The Guardian reported.
The businessman, who also heads the international fencing federation, had bought the 14-page document penned by International Olympic Committee founder Pierre de Coubertin, advocating the resurrection of the ancient Greek Games, for a record $8.8 m (£6.8m) at auction in New York in December.
Usmanov’s identity had been kept under wraps at the end of a 12-minute long bidding war between three international buyers, that had sent the price from the top estimate of $1m to the record $8.8m, according to auctioneer Sotheby’s.