Sport and Recreation on Robben Island

The article provides insight into an important part of South Africa's sport history that has not been explored yet: What was the role sport and recreation played on Robben Island in the days when it served as political prison? The research has been a collaborative project of the Department for Cultural Affairs and Sport, Western Cape Sports Council, Mayibuye Centre and the University of the Western Cape's Interdisciplinary Center for Sport Science and Development. Facilitated by the establishment of a ‘Robben Island General Recreational Committee' in the 1960s, sport and recreation took a very special form on the Island. Unknown to South Africans and the world, during Apartheid, sport and recreation on Robben Island were used as a vehicle to unite people and to promote values of respect, integrity, dignity, teamwork and fair play as an integral part of a holistic person. Leisure activities became a place of triumph of human spirit, body and soul. The research facilitated the process of digitisation of archives from the Island. Numerous sources were discovered, giving an insight into the role of sport and recreation for many of South Africa's past and present leaders. The study also highlights the role sport and recreation played in the unique journey to freedom and democracy.     

Determining the influence of the social versus physical context on environmentally responsible behaviour among cycling spectators

The paper explores the relationships between three factors and environmentally responsible behavioural intentions among cycling spectators: place attachment, subculture identification and subjective norms. Two categories of behavioural intentions are presented namely situational (while spectating) and future (before attending similar events). Analysis of covariance is used to test the relationships in a sample of 619 spectators from both road race and mountain bike events. The paper supports previous research highlighting the importance of the social dimension of sport spectating and the link to social norms that drive environmental behaviour. It also adds to existing research on place attachment as a precursor to environmentally responsible behaviour with reference to sport spectating.     

谈青少年山地自行车运动员的科学选材

从青少年运动员的身体形态、生理机能、运动素质、心理素质、专项成绩、教练员评定等因素对山地自行车运动项目的影响进行分析,试图为青少年山地自行车运动员选材提供必要的科学依据。     

A Theory of Sport and Politics

The study of international relations purports to explain how nation-states and individuals interact around the globe. Yet one major area of such interaction – international sport – remains exceedingly understudied. This in spite of the fact that countries have gone to war over sport, fought for sovereign recognition through sport, and that citizens around the world have it as a daily part of their lives. Indeed it is astounding that a phenomenon that matters so much has been so little studied by a field that purports to explain relations between states and humans around the world. These deficiencies became more apparent in 2008 when we witnessed the world's biggest country hosting the world's biggest sporting event. The Beijing Olympics, though entertaining and exciting, showed how little we have thought about the link between sport and international politics. This article introduces a framework for understanding the link between sport and politics. Its point of entry is to argue that many of the questions about how China portrayed itself during the Olympics and whether the Games marked China's rise as a responsible power cannot be answered without first understanding how sport in general is related to a country's political development, and its sense of nationhood. My arguments do not represent new breakthroughs in political science, rather I attempt merely to offer a systematic way of thinking about how sports and the Olympics matter in world politics through three inter-related causal pathways relating to a country's sense of self, its diplomacy, and its capacity for change.     

‘Stuff from which legends are made’: Jack Trice Stadium and the politics of memory

This paper considers the politics involved in naming Iowa State University's football stadium after Jack Trice, the school's first African American athlete and its only athlete to die from injuries sustained in competition. This decision took place in the mid- to late-1990s, at nearly the same time administrators dedicated another site of memory on Iowa State's campus – Carrie Chapman Catt Hall. Catt, an esteemed alumna of the school, was an important lobbyist for women's rights in the early twentieth century who made several racist, classist and xenophobic remarks in her campaigns. By locating these two memorial efforts within the larger context of racialized relations in the US, this essay argues that the university memorialized Jack Trice in order to assert itself as a racially inclusive space during a moment that threatened to brand the institution deficient when it came to minority students and affairs.     

Why 1984 Medalist Li Ning Lit the Flame at the Beijing 2008 Olympics: The Contribution of the Los Angeles Olympics to China's Market Reforms

After the Communist victory in 1949, the People's Republic of China was excluded from most world organisations. China withdrew from the International Olympic Committee in 1958 in protest over its continued recognition of Taiwan, and since it supported the US boycott of the Moscow 1980 Olympics, it did not return to the summer games until the 1984 Los Angeles Olympics. While the diplomatic importance of those games is well known, their importance for China's economic reforms has not been discussed. The Los Angeles Games not only played an important role in the revitalisation of Chinese national identity, but also provided an eye-popping example of marketised sport and mega-events just as the economic reforms were launched. The Los Angeles Games were the first televised broadcast of the popular culture of the West to a wide Chinese audience. The deep impression they left on their Chinese viewers helped to launch China towards becoming the economic power that it became a quarter of a century later. This was symbolically represented at China's first Olympic Games in 2008, when the Olympic flame was lit by Li Ning, the gold medalist in Los Angeles who founded a sporting goods company that is considered as one of the hallmark cases of the reforms.     

Sport,Education and Philanthropy in Nineteenth-century Edinburgh: The Emergence of Modern Forms of Football

This paper looks at the way in which an ethos of the importance of sport developed in some of Edinburgh's schools in the early part of the nineteenth century; how football was deliberately encouraged by a group of city schoolmasters to develop manly virtues and a competitive spirit; and how one pioneering city philanthropist set up perhaps the first football club in the world, then passed on his enthusiastic love of the game to some of the poorest children in the city, thereby laying the foundations for some of the city's first football clubs. Many of these developments in Edinburgh took place years, if not decades, before similar events in England, and therefore had a major and previously unrecognized impact on the history of both codes of football in Britain and throughout the world.     

Niels Bukh's Gymnastics School in Denmark, 1912–1933: Gymnastics,Erotics, and Male Bonding

Around 1916–1917 the Danish gymnastics pedagogue Niels Bukh (1880–1950) created, in an international sense, a revolutionary men's gymnastics, and in 1920 he established Denmark's and the world's first folk high school of physical education and sport. During the 1930s, Niels Bukh and his team of gymnasts first became a symbol for the dynamic Danish farming community, and then for the face of Denmark both at home and abroad. Bukh changed the stereotypical male expression of bodily dynamics, which in Danish rural gymnastics had been almost military. He made it legitimate for the young lads to get in close physical contact and to work in pairs in order to create beautiful masculine gymnastic choreographies. Within the aesthetic history of masculinity, it has often been male homosexual aestheticians, designers, musicians, dancers, and so on who have opened new avenues for the expression of male emotion, which was a trademark of Bukh's achievements, too.     

A longitudinal analysis of start position and the outcome of World Cup cross-country mountain bike racing

For any athlete competing at the highest level it is vital to understand the components that lead to successful performance. World cup cross-country mountain biking is a complex sport involving large numbers of athletes (100-200) competing for positional advantage over varied off-road terrain. The start has been deemed a major part of performance outcome in such races. The purpose of the present study was to establish the relationship between start and finish position in cross-country mountain bike World Cup events over a 10 year (1997-2007) period and to make comparisons with a model manipulating start position based on predicted athletic capabilities. Data collection and comparisons included results from World Cup events from 1997 to 2007 (males and females), and modelled race data based on potential performance capabilities over the same period. Analyses involved the association of annual plus pooled start and finish position (Kendall's tau) along with banded mean, standard deviation for number of changes in position, while non-constrained linear regression enabled comparison between seasons. Actual race data showed significant positive correlations between starting position and finishing position (P < 0.01) in all cases but less than the model. A mean 57.4% (s = 5.6) of males changed < 15 positions, while 62.9% (s = 9.1) of females changed < 10 positions compared with modelled data (83.6%, s = 0.8 and 91.6%, s = 1.5 for males and females respectively). Individual season comparisons show general patterns to be identical (P > 0.05) for both males and females. In conclusion, finishing position is highly dependent on start position and strategies need to be devised for competing athletes to progress in the sport.     

Branding and positioning Australian rules football for participation growth in North America

Founded in 1996, the United States Australian Football League is a participation-based, amateur league that has the goal of increasing awareness, interest and participation in the sport of Australian rules football in the United States. The league has encountered challenges in creating awareness of, and therefore building participation in the sport. Lack of exposure and awareness of the sport in the United States sport marketplace is a fundamental barrier to growing participation. The USAFL has experienced difficulties in building participation because there is limited awareness and knowledge of the sport and league in the US, in addition to also a general confusion about, and lack of understanding of the sport of Australian rules football. These challenges have hindered the growth of the game in the US. The case provides students with the opportunity to consider the challenges inherent in positioning a sport in a foreign context. The case invites students to consider issues of creating awareness of a sport and branding it from the perspective of the President of the USAFL (an Australian ex-patriot) and a fellow board member (an American citizen). By comparing and contrasting the perspectives of an individual from the sport's country of origin (where the sport is immensely popular), and an individual from the sport's new cultural context encourages students to critically challenge assumptions about the popularity of sports, and explore strategies that may more effectively brand and position a sport within a new cultural context.     

It Wasn't Just Emily Davison! Sport,Suffrage and Society in Edwardian Britain

The suffragette Emily Davison was killed by King George V's horse during the 1913 Epsom Derby while trying to draw attention to the campaign for women's suffrage. However, this much-publicized and shocking incident was not the only connection between sport and political protest in the early twentieth century. This paper will show how British suffragettes carried out a series of violent acts against sport and sportsmen that were unparalleled in the English-speaking world. At the same time it will demonstrate that female suffragists, like many Edwardian women, took part in a wide variety of sports, suggesting that it was possible to be both a feminist and a sportswoman.     

The inextricable link between sport and the press in the Victorian era: the example of the ‘Sentinel Cup’

During the Victorian era sport underwent what has been described by academics as a ‘revolution’. What began the nineteenth century as largely informal, recreational pastimes with few written rules and a small commercial fringe was transformed into a codified, commercialised, mass-spectator entertainment industry. During this period an inextricable link developed between sport and the press and both became mutually beneficial; sport provided a continuous conveyor belt of content for journalists to report whilst newspapers provided enhanced publicity and exposure in return. However, the press were not merely commentators and observers of sport and several publications took a more central role in its development and organisation. This is exemplified by the Staffordshire Sentinel, a regional newspaper that circulated across North Staffordshire and South Cheshire, which established the self-titled ‘Sentinel Cup’ in 1892. The competition was officially created to develop junior association football in the region, although key stakeholders also had other alternative motives, and it has been contested for 125 consecutive years, making it the longest continuous football cup in Britain. This paper uses the ‘Sentinel Cup’ as an exemplar of how the press became increasingly involved in sport during the Victorian era and explores the competition’s inauguration.     

Globalization of the traditional Okinawan art of Shotokan karate

Abstract

Since the eighteenth century, the traditional Okinawan art of Shotokan karate has transformed into a global sport. The violent history of Okinawa in the late 1700s led to the art’s initial creation. In its early years, karate was banned by the government and all practice of it had to take place in secret. Karate was practiced just in Okinawa for over a century. The spread of karate into Japan in 1922 initiated its move towards a Western migration. Through a combination of mass media and the experience of spectators and practitioners, karate spread around the globe. In 1970, international karate competitions began to take place. This initiated the popularization of the sport of karate, introducing more changes to the sport based on the preferences of the spectators. The World Karate Federation (WKF) and the International Olympic Committee (IOC) together took this art and created an Olympic sport.     

Transformation of Women's Mass Sport in the Process of Urbanisation in Contemporary China

Since the 1980s, China has initiated a new era of urbanisation. Urbanisation, like a social engine, has driven a dramatic change in the way that people take part in sport. The particular focus of this article is to explore the impact of urban development on the systematic transformation of women's sport at the grass-roots level. Based on Riess's perspective of the relationship between cities and sport, and socialist feminist's points of view concerning female sport, this research applied a qualitative research paradigm using an in-depth interview method to examine the major social forces which stimulated the rise of women's mass sport in urban China. It is argued that urban development has provided Chinese women with a governmental guarantee, comparatively free individual choices and diversified opportunities to pursue their own interests and fulfilment in and through sport. Generally speaking, Chinese women's mass sport has improved. However, there are still limitations within the institutional structure, physical structure and value systems of the urban society, as well as its sport subsystem to support the sustainable development of women's mass sport. Ideas concerning women's inferiority and gender inequality still remain during this transformation.     

The Origins of Football Debate: The ‘Grander Design and the Involvement of the Lower Classes’, 1818–1840

This article presents extensive new material in ‘the origins of football debate’ by using the British Library's digitisation project of nineteenth-century newspapers. In so doing, it responds to claims from Graham Curry and Eric Dunning that previous works of the ‘revisionist historians’ John Goulstone, Adrian Harvey and Peter Swain are misleading and have led to hasty conclusions. It evidences a football culture beyond the domain of the public schools and highlights the shift in the locus of games from urban areas to paddocks and fields complying with the Highways and Police Acts. This compliance reduced the number of prosecutions covered in newspaper reports of the day but other games, in which misdemeanours took place, are recorded, suggesting that a broad football culture did still exist in this period. The article rejects Curry and Dunning's thesis surrounding a mid-century ‘civilising spurt’ in sport in favour of explanations surrounding the structural changes taking place in the nineteenth century, including increasing industrialisation, urbanisation, population growth, and migrationary movements. It also emphasises the emergence of a horizontally stratified class-based society and an attack on football games from an emerging social and industrial elite who were looking after their property and commercial interests.     

Going the Distance: The Road to the 1984 Olympic Women's Marathon

The 1984 Los Angeles Games hosted, for the first time in Olympic history, a women's marathon race. It took the efforts of several important factions to accomplish the event. First, women runners demonstrated that they were capable of running great distances in increasingly faster times. Second, the popular media publicised those performances, often mitigating athletic commentary with observations about the runners' femininity, attractiveness and relationships with men. Finally, commercial sponsors joined the ranks in this marathon battle to finance important events, running circuits and advocacy groups while simultaneously promoting their own brands of commodity feminism. In the end, it took the coming together of the physical activists, media advocates and corporate champions to accomplish this milestone in sport history.     

Performance differences when using 26- and 29-inch-wheel bikes in Swiss National Team cross-country mountain bikers

The purpose of this study was to analyse the effect of bike type – the 26-inch-wheel bike (26“ bike) and the 29-inch-wheel bike (29“ bike) – on performance in elite mountain bikers. Ten Swiss National Team athletes (seven males, three females) completed six trials with individual start on a simulated cross-country course with 35 min of active recovery between trials (three trials on a 26“ bike and three trials on a 29“ bike, alternate order, randomised start-bike). The course consisted of two separate sections expected to favour either the 29“ bike (section A) or the 26“ bike (section B). For each trial performance, power output, cadence and heart rate were recorded and athletes’ experiences were documented. Mean overall performance (time: 304 ± 27 s vs. 311 ± 29 s; P < 0.01) and performance in sections A (P < 0.001) and B (P < 0.05) were better when using the 29“ bike. No significant differences were observed for power output, cadence or heart rate. Athletes rated the 29“ bike as better for performance in general, passing obstacles and traction. The 29“ bike supports superior performance for elite mountain bikers, even on sections supposed to favour the 26“ bike.     

A Brief Legal History of Prize Fighting in Nineteenth Century America

This article examines the value for historians of sport of works of fiction in which sport is a central motif. The novel that is explored in this context is Eva Menasse's Vienna which offers a unique representation of Austrian soccer throughout a significant part of the twentieth century and thereby provides a vivid account of the more general relationship between soccer, society and identity. It is argued that the novel also allows us to reflect on the ways in which professional athletes view their world. Does Vienna add to the uninitiated's knowledge about the ‘facts’ of Austrian football in the period depicted? Perhaps not. Does it increase our understanding of the place of football in Austrian society at that time and, indeed, in the lives of individuals in many societies even during times of crisis? Here the answer is almost certainly an unequivocal ‘yes’.