‘The Sole Anti-Democratic Federation in the Entire Olympic Movement’: Early International Association of Athletics Federations Development Initiatives Between Commercialization and Democratization, 1974–1987

Abstract

Studies on the development of Olympic Solidarity as a tool of the International Olympic Committee (IOC) to enable National Olympic Committees of developing countries access to resources and influence in the Olympic Movement exist. However, historical scholarship has relatively neglected the development of aid programs by International Federations to explain how they made use of resources to gain influence in international sport politics. Based on extensive multi-national and multi-lingual archival research in the archives of the International Association of Athletics Federation (IAAF) and the German Sport University Cologne, this article explores the establishment and development of the IAAF‘s Technical Aid Program, which had been installed in 1974. Referencing a large amount of previously unknown protocols and written correspondence, the paper critically discusses the IAAF‘s development activities in light of two parallel occurring processes that shaped the federation’s character in the 1970s and 1980s decisively: its increasing commercialization and its path towards democratization in its voting system. It is argued that the IAAF development programs served as a tool to enforce commercial and sport political interests whilst the nature of support remained without clear guidance until the mid-1980s.     

Federal Government Involvement in Australian Disability Sport, 1981–2015

Abstract

Few historical accounts of Australian sport policy have explicitly profiled the federal government’s involvement in disability sport. In this paper, we draw on the concept of ableism as a lens to address this lacuna. In doing so, we profile the history of the Commonwealth government involvement in disability sport and explore how the policy of ‘mainstreaming’ has emerged through partnerships led by the Australian Paralympic Committee with National Sporting Originations (NSOs) and government. We highlight that whilst these changes have arguably made mainstream NSOs more aware of their legal obligations and have led to positive changes in the provision of opportunities for people with a disability through the development of ‘Paralympic pathways’, there is some evidence of potential caveats of ‘mainstreaming’. Specifically, we point to an emerging body of evidence which suggests that despite these policy measures, people with disabilities still report being marginalized and excluded from ‘mainstream’ sporting programmes. Therefore, we question if less governmental leadership is the right path given the limitations of the present policy framework. Additionally, we highlight how performance-based funding mechanisms such as ‘Winning Edge’ are narrowing who is eligible for funding and thus curtailing finite resources for only the most ‘abled’ of the disabled.     

The First International Recreation Congress in Los Angeles in 1932 and Its Importance as a Stage for the National Recreation Association and the International Olympic Committee

In 1932, as a prelude to the Los Angeles Olympics, an international gathering of supporters of ‘Sport for All’ held the first International Recreation Congress. The meeting sought to revive the original connection established during the early decades of the Olympic Movement by the Baron Pierre de Coubertin between the elite sporting spectacles he created and his commitment to active mass recreation for modern societies. The International Olympic Committee had a long and complex relationship with ‘Sport for All’ programmes, as revealed in this initial meeting of mass recreation enthusiasts and the subsequent congresses that followed. The International Olympic Committee leaders who inherited Coubertin's mantle used the recreation conclave to push the responsibility of implementing ‘sport for all’ onto other agencies rather than returning the Olympic Movement to the centre of the struggle – as Coubertin desired. While scholars have paid considerable attention to other elements of the 1932 Los Angeles games, the International Recreation Congress has been neglected, even though it created important legacies for the struggles between elite and mass sport during the rest of the twentieth century.     

Monarchy,Socialism and Modern Capitalism: Hungary's Participation in Three London Olympic Games

Olympic sport is a double-edged sword. It has the potential to bring nations together and to transmit values, but it can also demonstrate international political tensions and conflicting national structural characteristics. As part of the International Olympic Movement from the very beginning, Hungary is one of the few nations to have taken part in the (Summer) Olympic Games in London for the third time. The Olympic presence of Hungary has been almost continuous in spite of the significant transformations of its state ideology, sport structures and political background. In 1908, within the framework of the Austro-Hungarian Monarchy, the Hungarian Kingdom endeavoured to demonstrate its autonomy and courage with its memorable Olympic successes in London. A People's Republic was being formed in Hungary at the time of the second London Olympic Games in 1948. The socialist ideology and the self-display of socialist–communist ambitions characterised the preparation and the participation of the Hungarian athletes. Hungary is celebrating the year of its third London Games with a democratic system in the background, built up from 1989, and a new Constitution adopted in 2011. Furthermore, the Hungarian Sport Act was renewed in 2012, due to which the Hungarian Olympic Committee has gained increased power, which might provide new ways of solving the financial problems within Hungarian elite sport.     

Aligning Olympic education with the liberal arts: a curriculum blueprint from Taiwan

Background: For some time the Olympics have enjoyed a relatively cosy, and quite unsurprising, relationship with Physical Education and its practitioners. Yet, as academics continue their critiques of all matters Olympic, this seemingly symbiotic partnership is being placed under much closer scrutiny. The debates are typically orientated around several key concerns, namely, the vagaries of Olympic discourse, the implicit assumptions that align Olympic idealism with ‘good’ moral education, the relevance of Olympic values in young peoples' lives, the Olympic industry's politicizing/colonizing of educational domains, and the utility of Olympic ideals for affecting social, cultural, and (physical) educational change. One other discussion thread, which we add to in this paper, has been the (in)congruencies between Olympic idealism and non-Western cultural contexts and educational frameworks. Combined, the scholarly voices essentially encourage theorists and practitioners to approach the relationship between education and the Olympics with care.

Context and curriculum overview: Cognizant of these contentions, this paper exhibits an Olympic education curriculum for first-year undergraduate students enrolled within a provincial Taiwanese University's Liberal Arts programme. We detail three tentative themes around which an Olympic education curriculum might be constructed: Peace, Multiculturalism, and Global sensibilities. These particular themes are concomitant with Olympic idealism, but also align with contemporary East Asian Liberal Arts frameworks. In our curriculum design, the emphasis is on developing an Olympic education that not only introduces students to broader global ideas (e.g. universality and cosmopolitan citizenry), but that respects and reflects national/localized specificities (e.g. Asian philosophical traditions and their legacies in educational institutions).

Considerations: The paper stresses the need to further Olympic debates outside the traditional domains of sport and Physical Education, and continue the challenge to Western-orientated sport pedagogies. Our intention is to create a strong cross-cultural study Olympic-inspired Liberal Arts programme that may better link tertiary students in Taiwan with key sport institutions in East Asia, and also throughout the wider communities around the world. We envision aspects of our course material may hopefully serve as a useful reference for other teachers and provide a blueprint for future curricula that might challenge Western-Olympic education orientations.     

Propaganda and Censorship for the 1984 Los Angeles Olympic Games: The Internal Politics of Ceausescu

The aim of this paper is to present an overview of the USSR boycott of the 1984 Olympic Games and Nicolae Ceausescu’s decision to send the Romanian Olympic team to Los Angeles, from an internal politics perspective. All the existing analyses study the situation from the perspective of international relations but the aim of this paper is to analyze the ways that Ceausescu incorporates this decision into his own ideology and how the Romanian people were informed. The sports news was published in the newspaper Sportul and some in Scanteia (‘The Official Newspaper of the Central Committee of the Romanian Communist Parti’). We will analyze all the relevant material from January until the end of August 1984 and will focus on the characteristics of propaganda and censorship used to convince the population about Ceausescu’s reasons to participate at the Olympic Games despite the situation. Dominated by the idea of a ‘multilateral developed society’, Ceausescu incorporated sport as part of this ideology and in the case of the 1984 Los Angeles Olympic Games, he manipulated the population through the media in a particular manner, centred on his ‘cult of personality’.     

Organizational evolution and the Olympic Games: the case of sport climbing

Abstract

This paper discusses the processes underpinning the evolutionary development of sport climbing in recent decades, with a particular focus on the impact of its inclusion in the Olympic Games. New institutionalism and resource-dependence theory provide an analytical and explanatory framework for this study. The research adopted a qualitative method strategy comprising a series of interviews and the analysis of documents, reports, press and social media. The recent inclusion of the sport in the Tokyo 2020 Olympic programme has created challenges, primarily because of strong values inherent within the sport. The research, however, shows that the values of a sport can expand and develop in order to fit the regulatory legitimacy required by inclusion in the Olympic Games. Nonetheless, the research also shows that involvement with the IOC raises questions about who ‘owns’ the sport.     

The Development of the Olympic Narrative in Chinese Elite Sport Discourse from Its First Successful Olympic Bid to the Post-Beijing Games Era

Abstract

As a phenomenon exogenous to China, the Olympics have been proactively interpreted in the local context since China’s entry (and subsequent re-entry in 1984) into the Olympic movement. With China’s increasing involvement in promoting three bids to host the Olympic Games, two of which were successful, respectively, in 2001 and 2015, the nature of the discourse of key stakeholders in relation to Chinese elite sport has both reflected and reshaped the meaning of the Games to Chinese elite sport. This paper examines the discursive construction process of the Olympics in the Chinese elite sport system by key stakeholders through analyzing statements of political figures on sport and Olympic phenomena, Chinese elite sport policy documents, and the commentaries of leading Chinese sport academics. The analysis of discourse highlights two main features in the construction of the Games in official accounts during the period under investigation. The development of these two themes reflects the nature of the Chinese Olympic discourse, manifests the political power over the interpretation of the Olympics in Chinese context, and continues to characterize the on-going major themes in Chinese elite sport policy.     

科学发展观视角下奥运战略的可持续发展研究

随着时代的进步,奥运战略在历史过程中积累的以"为国争光"为最高目标、以政府职能部门为实施主体、以优势项目为战略重点、以专业运动队培养人才、以综合性竞赛整合资源等宝贵经验都面临着时代挑战.在科学发展观指导下,奥运战略改革应从战略和战术两个层面展开,即以提升竞技体育整体实力和综合竞争力取代单纯"为国争光"的目标取向;在战术层面,应重点从管理体制、项目布局调整、人才培养、选拔模式、竞赛体制等方面入手,以实现其可持续发展.     

奥林匹克运动在中国的发展(二)

以体育为载体的国际社会文化活动——奥林匹克运动,在19世纪末期诞生不久,即随着西方近代体育文化的传入被介绍到了中华大地,为奥林匹克运动在近代中国的发展和普及起到了推动作用。新中国的成立,为奥林匹克运动在中国的进一步发展提供了前所未有的机遇,奥林匹克运动与中国文化背景逐渐交流、融合,并在中华大地得到了空前的发展,形成了当代中国体育的主流。进入20世纪80年代后,中国民众对以奥运会为代表的奥林匹克的关注程度,甚至高于对其他许多社会问题的关心。现代体育意识和奥运意识以潜移默化的方式,逐渐深入人心,成为当代中国发展奥林匹克运动的一大特色。     

奥运经济价值源泉的探析

从注意力经济的视角,分析奥运经济的本源。认为在信息社会,注意力是一种的稀缺资源,经营注意力已成为主流商业模式;构成奥运经济主体的电视转播权销售和商业赞助,在本质上是奥运会注意力资源的交易行为;充分体现注意力资源独占性特征的“货卖一家”营销策略,实现了奥运会注意力资源经济价值的最大化。     

奥运价值观对爱国情感和奥运关注的影响:有调节的中介变量

民众从何种角度关注北京奥运会,这种关注受哪些因素影响是文章的关注点。研究发现,民众的奥运关注具有多元性,不同代际的关注程度不同。奥运关注受爱国情感和奥运价值观的影响,且奥运价值观在爱国情感和奥运关注中起着部分中介作用,代际调节了爱国情感对奥运关注的影响程度。这些结果表明为确保大型公共事件的顺利开展,应引导民众树立良好的价值观念,着力培养青年的爱国情感。     

Independent Olympic Athletes and the Legitimacy of the International Olympic Committee in Resolving International Conflicts

Abstract

Over the last three centuries (nineteenth, twentieth, and twenty-first) humanity has been facing huge political and ideological conflicts, especially wars. For these reasons, it was seen how necessary it was to create global institutions that aimed to promote peace and reduce or stop conflicts of this magnitude. Therefore, an international institution had already brought on its premises the principles of international peace and reconciliation through sport: the International Olympic Committee (IOC). However, despite bringing together nations around peaceful ties in an international competition, the IOC and the Olympic Games event have always been affected by constant conflicts along their path in the twentieth century, emphasizing issues involving nationalities. Thereby, in a mediator posture of international conflicts and in an effort to reduce the subversions that surrounded it, the IOC, in the 1990s, created the delegation of Independent Olympic Athletes. Such a delegation consists of athletes who cannot represent their respective nationalities at the Olympics due to political factors and/or armament conflicts. This proposal of the IOC demonstrates its posture to avoid, minimize, and even cease ideological and political events that might interfere with the Olympics Games or the athletes participating in them.     

Equestrian Sport at the Olympic Games from 1900 to 1948

Olympic equestrian sport has to date evolved through three distinct phases of development. The genesis of equestrian sport in the modern Olympics began in 1900 and was predominantly shaped by military influences until 1948. Pre-1900 equestrian sport existed in various forms around the world primarily to develop and practice skills of hunting and warfare. At this time, equestrian sport lacked governance and internationally standardized rules. This paper’s aim is to explore the influence of the military on the first phase of equestrian sport development in the Olympic Games between 1900 and 1948 with regards to their format and rules. Through thematic analysis of the narratives evident in the literature, we highlight influential military developments/changes that occurred outside the confines of sport, and place the sociocultural development of equestrianism within this framework. This reconstructive approach has enabled us to highlight the relevance of the military influence on the development of equestrian sport. Through the identification and analysis of perceptions of Olympic equestrianism, which are centred upon the Eurocentric, military-influenced development of the sport, the paper also discusses implicit and explicit references to, and the relevance of, masculinity elitism and social class, along with issues of amateurism and professionalism.     

奥运会财政投入模式与奥林匹克运动的发展

从现代奥运会一百余年的历史发展分析,奥运会财政投入模式主要分为政府投入、私人投入和结合型投入3种方式,这3种模式也是政府与市场在奥林匹克发展中的矛盾集中体现。研究发现:政府包办和私人部门市场运作两种奥运会投入模式各有利弊,单纯一种力量不足以办好规模宏大的现代奥运会,政府与市场二者结合的投入模式,才能使奥运会的政治、经济、社会效益得到更好的发挥。     

Historical Dictionary of Track and Field

This article, which is based on original archival and press research, examines the origins of the Cold War from the perspective of sport in the post-war occupied zones of Germany. Both the western Allies and Soviet communist victors claimed that they wished to use sport to help establish ‘democracy’ in Germany. However, their conceptions of ‘democracy’ were diametrically opposed and each side used the sporting press to caricature and criticise the other. In the Soviet zone, sports reporting portrayed the West as elitist, professional in their ‘Taylorist’ methods and nationalist in outlook. Reversing their former hostility to the Olympic movement, the Soviet-controlled German sports press argued that only socialist sport could deliver true amateur ‘Olympic’ sport by democratising athletics for the masses. The occupying Allied powers made up of Britain, France and the United States were united in their rejection of unproven claims of Soviet superiority and denounced the ‘undemocratic’ controls imposed by the Soviets across Eastern Europe. The holding of the Olympic Games in London in the summer of 1948 as Cold War tensions increased provides a focus for these divergent views, throwing new light on the political role of the reporting of sport and of the sporting press in post-war Germany.     

第 29 届奥运会后的国际竞技体育展望

结合当前的国际金融危机,从国际竞技体育本身、竞技体育的发展保障以及竞技体育发展带来的效益等角度,对国际竞技体育的发展现状和趋势进行展望.第29届奥运会后各国在竞技体育领域内的竞争将日趋激烈,主要竞技体育强国的竞技体育竞争实力将会进一步提高;以举国体制为基本理念的竞技体育政策将会在各国陆续出现;奥运会项目可能不会出现较大程度的变化,非奥运竞技体育项目将会迎来发展的有利时机;全球金融危机将会在一定程度上减缓国际竞技体育的步伐,但是体育经济将会成为现代社会经济发展的新增长点;竞技体育训练的科技含量不断增加,体育科技朝着集约化的方向发展;竞技体育作为一种文化活动,已经成为人们生活的一部分.     

2022年北京冬奥会我国运动员奖牌预测与参赛策略--基于奥运会主场优势效应分析

以近10届冬奥会(第14—23届冬奥会)东道国为研究对象,系统研究冬奥会主办国金牌数量、奖牌数量、奖牌榜排名、不同运动分项奖牌数量等东道国优势特征,从国家竞技体育发展政策与经费投入、主场观众因素、场地熟悉程度、运动员参赛人数等角度分析冬奥会东道国优势效应产生原因;建立逻辑回归模型,预测我国运动员2022年北京冬奥会奖牌数量将创冬奥会参赛史最好成绩。借鉴冬奥会东道国办赛经验,提出我国运动员备战2022年北京冬奥会、创造冬奥会最佳参赛成绩策略:1)妥善应对疫情,实现参赛出彩目标;2)突出优势项目,确保运动员争金夺牌;3)利用场地优势,实现运动成绩新突破;4)适应观众氛围,发挥运动员最佳竞技状态;5)补齐项目短板,赛出运动员风格与水平。     

论奥林匹克文化

奥林匹克运动是以教育为核心、体育为载体的国际化现象。因此，从化的视角来审视奥林匹克运动十分必要。奥林匹克化是以西方化为主导的多元化；奥林匹克化是以教育为核心、体育为载体的化；奥林匹克化是具有远大理想和催人向上的先进化。     

The ‘East Asian’ Olympic Games: what of sustainable legacies?

Sport has proven to be an unstoppable globalising force. The Olympic Movement has come to epitomise modernisation and the extent to which Western sport has become globalised. The philosophy of Olympism, once resting upon just two pillars of Excellence in Sport and Culture has since 1994 been underpinned by a third, the Environment. All of the Olympic Games host cities now have to support a responsible concern for environmental issues and with that the very sustainability of ‘our’ culture, and sport itself. They must do so by bequeathing a holistic positive legacy from their Games. This paper will analyse the three ‘Asian’ Olympic Summer Olympic Games – Tokyo 1964, Seoul 1988 and Beijing 2008 – by looking at the cultural, sporting and environmental legacies each has left.

The discussion of the concept of sustainability as an element of culture will embrace Littig and Griessler’s idea that social sustainability is about the quality of societies expressed through the nature-society relationships and is not merely an economically based notion.1 ?1.?Littig & Griessler, ‘Social Sustainability’, 72. In this paper we consider the three Asian Summer Olympic Games. Each has been related to a specific nodal point in the host country's national history, as a means of illustrating, indeed emphasising, the always unique impacts of context on event and process. Yet we propose that, locked as they are in distinct epochs and differing cultural, political and economic contexts, they are nonetheless marked in common by an Asian discourse heavily reliant upon economic and nationalistic motivations.

The progressive analysis of each Games demonstrates that although each was unique, particularly in regards to the expectations stakeholders had of ‘their Olympics’, all three host nations represented themselves as ‘modern hybrids’ by simultaneously demonstrating their modernised characters and emphasising their ancient cultures. The analysis demonstrates the holistic impact of these events by reference to the wide range of economic, social, cultural and sporting changes that have emerged for each host from each festival. The evaluation of the nature and significance of these legacies reemphasises the impact of the Olympic Games as a vehicle for social change and illustrates the transformative power of sport at national and global levels.