The author allocates the most significant stages of the IOM history in the article. The cardinal changes in the international Olympic movement (IOM) have taken place at the last 20 years of the second millennium. The beginning to the qualitatively new stage in the statement of its status is necessary. It is the significant boundary in the history of neoolympism, becoming the phenomenon of planetary scale. The main road line of the reforming and modernization of the IOC was the turn of its movement to the way of the increasing of openness and democratization. The Olympic movement, becoming on the way of democratization, could find the material base and support. The admission of the professionals to Olympic games has considerably increased their entertaining interest. The serious crisis of the IOM experienced in 1980th and 1984th, when to the boycott the Olympic games in Moscow and Los-Angeles have undergone. The real danger for the unity of the IOM has appeared. It has expressed on the verge of the split and disintegration. The corruption - this general evil - has touched the Olympic sports also. The example is the scandal in Lausanne palace, burst concerning the bribes of the IOC members. The vigorous creative activity directed on the development of questions of the IOM theory is of the extreme priority. The outstanding role of J. A. Samaranch in the development, radical transformation of the IOM, in the increase of it's authority all over the world is doubtless. The contribution of this great innovator of olympism is difficult for overestimating.