The Olympic Games and Global Society (original) (raw)
Related papers
The Modern Olympic Games Movement
This paper looks into the issue of the origin of the Modern Olympic Movement through the various inferences gained by the interpretations of the intentions and actions of its founder – Baron Pierre de Coubertin. Segregated into three distinct sections – with each showing a diverse facet of Coubertin’s personality and his resultant intention, leading to a consequent distinguishable character of the Olympic Games – it is followed, at the very end, by an evaluated deduction of it being true (and, fighting for it) to the noble, establishing motive of – being a medium of interaction across divides.
Olympic Games, Olympism and Internationalism : a Historical Perspective
2009
The Olympic Games and sports are today a basic constituent of world mass, international and everyday culture. This may be confirmed by the place occupied by sports in printed and electronic information, the importance of sports and gymnastics in the educational process within and outside school, the extremely rapid spread of special premises for exercise and training, the football fans, sport advertising and the economic weight possessed by sport enterprises, as well as the increasingly sophisticated and elaborated spectacle of the modern Olympic Games. No one disputes, in any event, that the modern Olympic Games are one of the most important institutions of the twentieth century in which world-wide developments have been reflected. In the light of these observations, we can in fact argue that sport is a 'global' or 'holistic' phenomenon, an epitome of the society which ‘produces’ it. Consequently, it is meaningful for the study of sport to be integrated into its his...
When the World Gathers: a political review of the Olympic Games
2019
“When the world gathers, there is always a chance for political change”1. Unluckily, in many occasions, international sport gatherings have produced boycotts, bans and even terrorist attacks, proving how sport has been linked to politics since its origin. Specifically, from their creation in the 8th century before Christ until today, the Olympic Games have been the site of increasingly visible protests and demonstrations by a wide array of international actors. In fact, the Olympic Games are the perfect context in which to understand the reflection of the real, social and political reality of the time, and, in many ways, they present a metaphor on the society within which they are celebrated. In the present essay, we qualitatively study press articles and existing bibliography to analyse the fronts of conflict and protests since the beginning of the modern Olympic Games, to try to understand why they have been such arenas for contention, in what ways this conflict has materialized within the functioning of the Games, and around what topics and societal cleavages these confrontations have arisen. Without entering into deep detail, the present essay provides a holistic overview of political conflict in the Olympic Games.
Culture, politics and spectacle in the global sports event – an introduction
2006
The political exploitation of the global sports spectacle and the cultural and economic ramifications of its staging have been critical indices of the intensifying globalization of both media and sport. Sports events celebrating the body and physical culture have long been driven by political and ideological motives, from the ancient civilizations of Greece and Rome to the societies of early modern Europe, in more modern Western societies as well as less developed and non-Western ones. This is never more so than when such events purport to be spheres of neutrality and embodiments of universalist and idealist principles. Spectacles have been justified on the basis of their potential to realize shared, global modes of identity and interdependence, making real the sense of a global civil society. Understanding this form of spectacle, and the extent to which its claimed goals have been met or compromised, contributes to an understanding of the sources of ethnocentrism, and to debates concerning the possibility of a cultural cosmopolitanism combining rivalry, respect, and reciprocal understanding. Analyzing the global sports spectacle is a way of reviewing the contribution of international sport to the globalization process generally, and to processes and initiatives of global inclusion and exclusion. The most dramatic and high profile of such spectacles have been the modern Olympic Games and the men's football World Cup (henceforth World Cup). Such sporting encounters and contests have provided a source of and a focus for the staging of spectacle and, in an era of international mass communications, the media event. In any history of globalization, it would be an oversight to omit coverage of the foundation and growth of the International Olympic Committee (IOC) and the Fédération Internationale de Football Association (FIFA), founded in 1894 and 1904 respectively. The growth of these organizations, and of their major events, has provided a platform for national pride and prestige. Greece saw the symbolic potential of staging an international event such as the first modern Olympics in 1896 to both assert its incipient modernity and to deflect domestic tensions. Uruguay, having cultivated double Olympic soccer 1
This paper is analyzing the revival of the Olympic Games and their celebration in Athens (1896) not within the context of a continuity from ancient times to the nineteenth century, but, on the contrary, within the framework of the great changes – economic, social, ideological, cultural – which took place in Western societies from the eighteenth century on. I will try to show why Olympism was successful both in Europe and in Greece in late 19 th century and to interpret the revival of an ancient institution and the first Olympic Games in the light of concurrence of internationalism and nationalism.
Journal of Physical Education, Recreation & Dance, 2016
I n the autumn of 1896 readers of the first volume year of the American Physical Education Review-now known as the Journal of Physical Education, Recreation and Dance (JOPERD)-learned about the first Olympic games of the modern era, which were reborn on Orthodox Easter Sunday, April 5, 1896 (Clark, 1896). Among other things, those games produced the first Olympic champion to be crowned in 1,527 years (Olympic.org, 2015). The American James Brendan Connolly won the "gold medal" for his performance in the hop, skip and jump-known today as the triple jump-on April 6, 1896, in the grand marble Panathenaic Stadium in Athens, Greece (Clark; Olympic.org, 2015). (The original first-place medal was not made of gold, but of silver. For those living in or traveling to the Boston area, a statue of Connolly is located in South Boston at Joe Moakley Field [Russo, 2012]. He also finished second in the high jump and third in the long jump at the 1896 games.) But this Viewpoint is not about James Connolly or any other individual Olympian. Nor is it a historical account, social critique, or tribute per se. It does not seek to set the record straight on any controversial matters, nor does it enter into the debate about challenges facing the games (e.g., commercialization, doping, ethics, facilities, gender verification).
SAIS Review, 2011
The Olympic Games are a multinational and multisport event with unparalleled global allure. As athletes from more than 200 countries convene to compete, they are guided by the "Fundamental Principles of Olympism," which call for a mutually acceptable quest for excellence through challenge. Critics of Olympism claim the zero-sum nature of competitive challenge promotes extreme patriotism and international animosity rather than cooperative spirit. In light of this criticism and the resilience of the Olympic Games, this paper considers the proposition that athletic competition is incompatible with the goals of the Games, but ultimately rejects that view and provides two policy recommendations to allow the Olympic Games to realize their full potential as a global assembling event. T he Olympic Games are a multinational and multisport event with unparalleled global allure. Indeed, no other event in the world, sporting or otherwise, compares in the broad range of attention that the Olympic Games attract. To exemplify this, consider the case of the 2008 Olympic Games held in Beijing: all but one of the 205 National Olympic Committees (NOCs) that existed at the time of the Opening Ceremonies sent athletic delegations. Whether with just one athlete as in the case of Nauru or 639 athletes as in the case of China, NOCs and national governments consider representation at the Olympic Games as legitimizing their presence in the international communitas. Notice that not even the United Nations (UN) commands such level of membership, commitment, and involvement. The more than 4.5 billion television viewers that followed the efforts of the more than 10,500 athletes from all over the world, and the fact that more than 100 sovereigns and heads of governments and states were present in Beijing provide another measure of the Olympic Games' import. 1