Power, Politics, and the Olympic Games

Power, Politics, and the Olympic Games PDF

Author: Alfred Erich Senn

Publisher: Human Kinetics Publishers

Published: 1999

Total Pages: 315

ISBN-13: 9780880119580

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Traces the history of the modern Olympic games, and looks at boycotts, performance enhancing drugs, judging controversies, corporate sponsorships, and international rivalries

Power Games

Power Games PDF

Author: Jules Boykoff

Publisher: Verso Books

Published: 2016-05-17

Total Pages: 160

ISBN-13: 1784780731

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A timely, no-holds barred, critical political history of the modern Olympic Games The Olympics have a checkered, sometimes scandalous, political history. Jules Boykoff, a former US Olympic team member, takes readers from the event’s nineteenth-century origins, through the Games’ flirtation with Fascism, and into the contemporary era of corporate control. Along the way he recounts vibrant alt-Olympic movements, such as the Workers’ Games and Women’s Games of the 1920s and 1930s as well as athlete-activists and political movements that stood up to challenge the Olympic machine.

Inside the Olympic Industry

Inside the Olympic Industry PDF

Author: Helen Lenskyj

Publisher: SUNY Press

Published: 2000-07-14

Total Pages: 248

ISBN-13: 9780791447550

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Analysis from the perspective of those adversely affected by the social, economic, political, and environmental impacts of hosting an Olympic Games.

Watching the Olympics

Watching the Olympics PDF

Author: John Peter Sugden

Publisher: Routledge

Published: 2012

Total Pages: 272

ISBN-13: 0415578337

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Explores the Olympic spectacle, from the multi-media bidding process and the branding and imaging of the Games, to security, surveillance and control of the Olympic product across all of its levels. Contributors argue that the process of commercialization, directed by the IOC itself, has enabled audiences to interpret its traditional objects in non-reverential ways and to develop oppositional interpretations of Olympism. The Olympics have become multi-voiced and many themed, and the spectacle of the contemporary Games raises important questions about institutionalization, the doctrine of individualism, the advance of market capitalism, performance, consumption and the consolidation of global society. With particular focus on the London Games in 2012, the book casts a critical eye over the bidding process, Olympic finance, promises of legacy and development, and the consequences of hosting the Games for the civil rights and liberties of those living in their shadow. --From publisher description.

Drug Games

Drug Games PDF

Author: Thomas M. Hunt

Publisher: University of Texas Press

Published: 2011-01-15

Total Pages: 233

ISBN-13: 0292739575

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On August 26, 1960, twenty-three-year-old Danish cyclist Knud Jensen, competing in that year's Rome Olympic Games, suddenly fell from his bike and fractured his skull. His death hours later led to rumors that performance-enhancing drugs were in his system. Though certainly not the first instance of doping in the Olympic Games, Jensen's death serves as the starting point for Thomas M. Hunt's thoroughly researched, chronological history of the modern relationship of doping to the Olympics. Utilizing concepts derived from international relations theory, diplomatic history, and administrative law, this work connects the issue to global political relations. During the Cold War, national governments had little reason to support effective anti-doping controls in the Olympics. Both the United States and the Soviet Union conceptualized power in sport as a means of impressing both friends and rivals abroad. The resulting medals race motivated nations on both sides of the Iron Curtain to allow drug regulatory powers to remain with private sport authorities. Given the costs involved in testing and the repercussions of drug scandals, these authorities tried to avoid the issue whenever possible. But toward the end of the Cold War, governments became more involved in the issue of testing. Having historically been a combined scientific, ethical, and political dilemma, obstacles to the elimination of doping in the Olympics are becoming less restrained by political inertia.

Sport and Nationalism in Asia

Sport and Nationalism in Asia PDF

Author: Fan Hong

Publisher: Routledge

Published: 2016-04-14

Total Pages: 144

ISBN-13: 131757401X

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Written by a team of international scholars, Sport and Nationalism in Asia - Power, Politics, and Identity is a collection of original research which addresses a number of issues central to notions of nationalism and identity in sport including: how the Olympics and other international and regional sports events have fostered an active interweaving of sport, politics and nationalism; the role of traditional sport in the building of national consciousness and national identity; the way modern sport creates and reflects nationalism, thereby giving it a voice and a focus. The book covers eight case studies on countries/regions across West Asia, Central Asia and East Asia. It is one of the few works that examines the relationships between sport, politics and nationalism from Asian perspective. This book was published as a special issue of the International Journal of the History of Sport.

The Games: A Global History of the Olympics

The Games: A Global History of the Olympics PDF

Author: David Goldblatt

Publisher: W. W. Norton & Company

Published: 2016-07-26

Total Pages: 464

ISBN-13: 0393254119

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“A people’s history of the Olympics.”—New York Times Book Review A Boston Globe Best Book of the Year A Kirkus Reviews Best Nonfiction Book of the Year The Games is best-selling sportswriter David Goldblatt’s sweeping, definitive history of the modern Olympics. Goldblatt brilliantly traces their history from the reinvention of the Games in Athens in 1896 to Rio in 2016, revealing how the Olympics developed into a global colossus and highlighting how they have been buffeted by (and affected by) domestic and international conflicts. Along the way, Goldblatt reveals the origins of beloved Olympic traditions (winners’ medals, the torch relay, the eternal flame) and popular events (gymnastics, alpine skiing, the marathon). And he delivers memorable portraits of Olympic icons from Jesse Owens to Nadia Comaneci, the Dream Team to Usain Bolt.

The Politics of the Olympics

The Politics of the Olympics PDF

Author: Alan Bairner

Publisher: Routledge

Published: 2010-03-09

Total Pages: 499

ISBN-13: 1136963022

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With the ever increasing global significance of the Olympic Games, it has never been more topical to address the political issues that surround, influence and emanate from this quadrennial sporting mega event. In terms of the most recent evidence of the politics of the Olympics, the 2008 Beijing Games were riddled with political messages and content from the outset, and provided a global stage for protesters with numerous agendas. These included, to name but a few, proposed boycotts, potential terrorist attacks, the question of open media access, protests against China’s political practices and attempts to interrupt the ‘traditional’ torch rally. Essays in this collection focus on numerous political aspects of the Olympics from a variety of different perspectives, with a Glossary that contains a range of politically relevant entries relating to famous and infamous Olympic athletes, Olympic movement personnel and events and broader political issues and developments which have affected the modern Games. The purpose of this anthology is not to perpetuate hatred towards the concept and practices of Olympism or to regurgitate a ‘celebratory party line’. Instead, in addition to being informative, the book offers critical engagement with the Olympics by raising awareness of the movement’s political significance. Consequently, the essays in this anthology illustrate the strong but changing links between the modern Olympic Games and politics, in general, and address and discuss the key political aspects and issues with regard to the Games themselves, to national and international sport organisations and to specific countries’ attitudes to (ab)using the idea/ideal of the Olympics for their own political ends.