The Spanish Olympic Academy has received royal recognition ©RAOE

The King of Spain, HM Felipe VI, has bestowed the title "Royal" onto the Spanish Olympic Academy.

It means the organisation will now be known as the Spanish Royal Olympic Academy.

The move was approved following a request from the Academy's President, Conrado Durántez, and the President of the Spanish Olympic Committee Alejandro Blanco.

Spain's Academy is the oldest in the world with the royal recognition part of its 50th anniversary celebrations.

"It is a great honour to receive from the highest institution of the state such an important title which gives credit to the extraordinary work of the Academy," said Durántez.

Spain's King Felipe VI bestowed the honour on the country's Olympic Academy ©Getty Images
Spain's King Felipe VI bestowed the honour on the country's Olympic Academy ©Getty Images

The Academy was first founded in Madrid on November 6, 1968.

It followed the International Olympic Academy (IOA) being set-up seven years earlier in Olympia, with 146 similar bodies now existing across the world.

They all aim to "boost and defend the philosophical values of the Olympic Movement, as conceived by its founder Pierre de Coubertin".

As the first Academy, Spain is said to have set an example to those which followed in other countries.