Jack Thompson and Iain Adams (2011) Bolt from the darkness (Chapter 18: 86-89). In, Palmer, C. (Ed.) The abstraction of form in sport. SSTO Publications, Preston, UK. [topics: athletics, Usain Bolt, anti-doping] (original) (raw)
Related papers
2020
Through history, numerous events have taught us that the beliefs we once thought to be certainties were in fact mistaken, due to a lack of information. Still, in many occasions we tend to fall into the same cycle, believing that this time around we are actually on the right side of things, and that our newly acquired knowledge is a part of the progression to the betterment of humanity. The present research simply intends to present an example from the popular world of sports that shows how little we actually know about some of the simplest of things, and how one single case is enough to disregard decades of assumed scientific certainty. This interdisciplinary approach to Usain Bolt's case only attempts to shed some light in our ignorance, and specially in our pretentious assumptions regarding human knowledge.
SSTO Publications, University of Central Lancashire, Preston, UK ISBN: 978-0-9566270-2-5 (0-146 pages)
Pablo Picasso once said that art is the lie that enables us to realize the truth. Out ran by truth and reality is intended to encourage critical reflection and bring the viewer to new ‘truths’ about how they interpret reality and how one event may have multiple realities. The shadow of Ben Johnson clings onto his body, a metaphor for the moment when the reality of his inner truth grabs him and disconnects him from his career. The title of the image initially started as ‘break records, not rules’ with his true emotions trapped inside of his shadow. However, out of reflection grew Out ran by truth and reality. The image is based on a photograph of Johnson captured as he crossed the finishing line, right arm raised in victory. However, flame-like shadows are creeping up behind him to pull him back from undeserved victory and down into the hell of reality. But, perhaps reality, and merely excellent performance, was hell for him; a sporting suicide, voluntary and premeditated, “Canadian sprinter Ben Johnson was tested positive for using the anabolic-androgenic steroid (AAS) after he won gold medal” (Robert, 1993:21).
Palmer, C. (Ed.) (2013) The Sporting Image: Unsung Heroes of the Olympics 1896-2012. SSTO Publications, Preston, UK. ISBN: 978-0-9566270-4-9.
This is the fourth book in the Sporting Image Series compromising 32 chapters from students and academic staff, discussing Olympic culture across the genres of short story, poetry and artworks. At its heart it’s a philosophy book about the ethics of human behaviour; a moral philosophy explored through research and artistic representation about how people [Olympians] felt they ought to act, or not act in certain circumstances. Interestingly, it is the breadth of these circumstances outside of sport; wars, racism, discrimination and other social conflicts, that have been the stimulus for the Sporting Image students to research ‘special’ Olympians. What identifies the few Olympians from the many for special attention are their personal responses to these broader socio-political tensions, as acts of unsung heroism which have been represented artistically – in artworks, poetry and short stories. Unsung in this context alludes to actions beyond the medals and beyond the gaze and glare of sports settings for which some Olympians may be popular or even considered famous. They may be unsung and heroic for acts of truly unselfish giving, going beyond the call of duty expected from a sports personality, unsung; uncelebrated in some way, for acts of sacrifice, acts certainly not recognised as being part of sport, but nevertheless, heroic in the true sense of the word.
Journal of Medicine and Philosophy, 2014
Doping scandals can reveal unresolved tensions between the meritocratic values of equal opportunity + reward for effort and the "talentocratic" love of hereditary privilege. Whence this special reverence for talent? We analyze the following arguments: (1) talent is a unique indicator of greater potential, whereas doping enables only temporary boosts (the fluke critique); (2) developing a talent is an authentic endeavor of "becoming who you are," whereas reforming the fundamentals of your birth suit via artifice is an act of alienation (the phony critique); (3) your (lack of) talent informs you of your proper place and purpose in life, whereas doping frustrates such an amor fati self-understanding (the fateless critique). We conclude that these arguments fail to justify a categorical preference for natural talent over integrated artifice. Instead, they illustrate the extent to which unsavory beliefs about "nature's aristocracy" may still be at play in the moral theatre of sports.
Discentes (University of Pennsylvania), 2025
In Ancient Greek Heroes, Athletes, Poetry, Gregory Nagy presents a compelling exploration of how ancient Greek athletic practice, heroic myth, and poetic tradition converge within a coherent ritual system that links mortal endeavor to divine sanction. Centering his analysis on Pausanias’s second-century CE descriptions of the now-damaged sculptures of the Temple of Zeus at Olympia, Nagy argues that these artistic representations once communicated a “myth that told a story,” thus offering a privileged lens into the systemic nature of myth itself. Drawing on comparative mythology and structuralist approaches, including insights from Georges Dumézil, Ferdinand de Saussure, and Émile Benveniste, Nagy examines Herakles as both an archetypal hero and the prototypical athlete whose repeated “labors” (Greek āthloi) prefigure the athletic competitions later institutionalized in the Olympic Games. Structured in four main parts, Nagy’s text spans topics from the athleticism of the Amazons and Hippolytus to the role of Hera alongside Zeus in sanctioning athletic contests. Throughout, he emphasizes the political and religious significance of these events and the heroes who inspire them. Nagy’s broader thesis is that myth is not arbitrary but operates as a system of communication—an insight underscored by his notion that the Olympics enact a cyclical “compensation for mortality.” Athletes, in renewing the honor (timē) of heroic forebears, re-enact and reinforce the communal will to overcome existential fragility through ritual performance. In so doing, Nagy offers a wide-ranging and thought-provoking synthesis of sport, myth, and ritual, arguing persuasively that athletic tradition in ancient Greece constituted a sacred, hero-centric practice of cultural self-definition.
2013
At its heart this is a philosophy book about the ethics of human behaviour; a moral philosophy explored through research and artistic representation about how people felt they ought to act, or not act in certain circumstances. Interestingly, it is the breadth of these circumstances outside of sport; wars, racism, discrimination and other social conflicts, that have been the stimulus for students to research ‘special’ Olympians. What identifies the few Olympians from the many for special attention are their personal responses to these broader socio-political tensions, as acts of unsung heroism which the students have represented artistically. Unsung in this context alludes to actions beyond the medals and beyond the gaze and glare of sports settings for which some Olympians may be popular or even considered famous. They may be unsung and heroic for acts of truly unselfish giving, going beyond the call of duty expected from a sports personality, unsung; uncelebrated in some way, for acts of sacrifice, acts certainly not recognised as being part of sport, but nevertheless, heroic in the true sense of the word.
Kleos, or How we are Victory: The Male Athlete and His Varied Proxies
Thesis: Masters of Fine Art in Painting, 2022
Kleos, or How we are Victory: The Male Athlete and His Varied Proxies Michael C. Walker, August 2022 In the present body of work I concentrate on depictions of myself and other male athletes with illustrative portrayals of us in ways that speak to me about our lives on intimate yet also symbolic levels. In drawings of myself, I utilize ample nude studies but accented with the regalia of the sports in question—skateboards, sneakers and more—in homage to the Greek athlete/warrior who via coming of age also becomes a hope for society and in portrayals, when nude, often retained the regalia of warriors—sandals, helmets, swords, and shields. Other works in this series take a more literal and contemporary view of athletes in the processes and sites of their sports as well as iconographic depictions of the athlete as a graphic or cartoonish, illustrative, aspect. The overall idea is to examine how the Greek and extended Neoclassical concept of the heroic male athlete have come to inform the Western canon and how athletes as such are a construct in our contemporary personal and societal visual vocabulary. My core question is, when we represent an athlete beyond mere depiction of his athletic activity as would a sports photographer, how do we foster that representation and how do we channel the iconic ideals we have collectively as a society assigned to athletes over time? How do we see ourselves, how do we build extended narratives out of the interpolation of athleticism into our personae?
This paper emerges from the body of theory that considers the mega-event of the Olympic Games as a site of citizenship education, where citizenship is negotiated, learned, regulated, and performed for television viewers. As a site of global citizenship recognition, the mega-event of the Olympic Games, including the embodied participation of Olympic athletes, offers a rich venue through which we can understand the ways in which host nations, spectators, sponsors, and fans exalt and admonish particular citizenship performances. In this comparative feminist media analysis of the cases of athletes Caster Semenya and Oscar Pistorius, we map the ways in which categories of identity, including race, gender, and class, are mobilized in discussion of these athletes as more-or-less deserving Olympic athlete-citizens. Using discursive media analysis as a methodology, we focus on the framing of each athlete by the anonymous commentary of ordinary fans on a popular international track-andfield website called LetsRun. We suggest that citizenship theorists take seriously how hierarchies of power are enforced along intersectional lines of race, class, and gender, and ultimately contend that the disparate treatment of these athletes, as evidenced in fan commentary, extends and interrogates theories of exalted citizenship on the world stage.