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“Ambassadors in Tracksuits”

Matthew P. Llewellyn and John Gleaves

in The Rise and Fall of Olympic Amateurism

This chapter details the expanding globalization and commercialization of the Olympics in the 1930s. Emerging from the economic ruins of the Great Depression, authoritarian and totalitarian regimes ... More

This chapter details the expanding globalization and commercialization of the Olympics in the 1930s. Emerging from the economic ruins of the Great Depression, authoritarian and totalitarian regimes in Europe, Asia, and Latin America spurred a substantial rise in governmental involvement in international sport. Though the British were among the first to forge the linkage between competitive sport and national interests, their Fascist and militaristic rivals fully exploited the value of physical culture by positioning sport as the centerpiece of their foreign policy. The appropriation of elite, international sport by authoritarian regimes heightened the popularity and legitimacy of the Olympic Games. After successfully defending amateurism against the threat posed by broken-time payments, International Olympic Committee chiefs embraced the support of powerful right-wing governments. However, their initial hope soon turned to despair as it grew apparent that their authoritarian “allies” had transformed the Olympics into a ruthless game of realpolitik.Less

‘They used Americana, all painted and polished, to make the enormous impression they did’: selling the Reagan revolution through the 1984 Olympic Games¹

Umberto Tulli

in Sport and diplomacy: Games within games

The chapter aims at investigating the role of the Reagan administration in organizing the Games. Contrary to previous understanding, which tend to dismiss federal government involvment in the ... More

The chapter aims at investigating the role of the Reagan administration in organizing the Games. Contrary to previous understanding, which tend to dismiss federal government involvment in the organization of the Games, it will highlight the political and diplomatic actions undertaken by the Reagan administration to organize a perfect edition of the Olympics and to sell the world reaganism through the Los Angeles Games. Since the creation of an Olympic task force within the White House, the Los Angeles Games were perceived as a showcase on Ronald Reagan's America. The task force immediately concluded that the federal government would act behind the scenes, providing all the necessary security measures for the LAOOC and the Games, coordinating diplomatic actions and looking over consular practices. Tasks increased when the Soviets announced their boycott: the White House defined a clear damage-limiting strategy. In its conclusions, the chapter will discuss a sort of paradox: the Reagan administration was increasingly involved in the promotion of what it presented as a government-free edition of the Olympics.Less

The Legacy of Berlin 1936 and the German Past: Problems and Possibilities

Kay Schiller and Christopher Young

in The 1972 Munich Olympics and the Making of Modern Germany

This chapter explores the impact of the controversial 1936 Berlin Games on Munich's hosting of the 1972 Olympics. It examines the relationship between the International Olympic Committiee (IOC) and ... More

This chapter explores the impact of the controversial 1936 Berlin Games on Munich's hosting of the 1972 Olympics. It examines the relationship between the International Olympic Committiee (IOC) and the Nazis in 1936. It investigates how the younger members of the committee, throughout the 1960s, had harnessed various currents of discontent in a bid to topple Mayor Brundage. It talks about how the people who organized the Olympic Games in the Federal Republic were appointed and enumerates the public personalities of 1936 who were invited to Munich to launch the 1972 domestic publicity campaign live on Second German Television. This chapter also discusses the controversies enveloped in the flame lighting ceremony or the torch relay, as well as its effects on the Games itself. It notes that the contradictions over the treatment of inherited events continued into the IOC's handling of particular places, and, where possible, the organizers avoided potent memories of the Nazi regime.Less

The Amateur Apostle and the Cold War Games

Matthew P. Llewellyn and John Gleaves

in The Rise and Fall of Olympic Amateurism

This chapter focuses on International Olympic Committee (IOC) president Avery Brundage, who defended amateurism seemingly with religious conviction throughout his bureaucratic career. His deeply ... More

This chapter focuses on International Olympic Committee (IOC) president Avery Brundage, who defended amateurism seemingly with religious conviction throughout his bureaucratic career. His deeply conservative views and passionate defense of the amateur ideal set the tone for the IOC in the Cold War years, helping insulate the movement from the radical currents that were transforming postwar societies and global affairs. Both in his lifetime and in the years since, portrayals of Brundage depict a Quixote-esque idealist providing the Olympic Movement's only firm line of defense against professional and commercial encroachments. However, the orthodox view of Brundage as an unwavering apostle of amateurism overlooks the finer, more nuanced realities of his administration. Despite his anticommercial rhetoric and investigatory crusades, Brundage also appeased, compromised, and even spearheaded initiatives that broke with the Olympic Movement's amateur traditions.Less

‘Chinese rings’: the United States, the two Chinas and the 1960 Squaw Valley Winter Olympics

Rachel Vaughan (ed.)

in Sport and diplomacy: Games within games

This chapter examines the inter-relationship of sport and diplomacy with specific reference to the 1960 Winter Olympic Games (held in Squaw Valley, California). More specifically, it evaluates State ... More

This chapter examines the inter-relationship of sport and diplomacy with specific reference to the 1960 Winter Olympic Games (held in Squaw Valley, California). More specifically, it evaluates State Department involvement in the ongoing issue of the recognition of the “Two China’s” during the Cold War, with specific reference to international sport. Despite long-standing official non-involvement in international sporting matters, hosting the 1960 Games focussed US diplomatic attention on the opportunities and problems presented by the Olympics within the wider Cold War. Crucially, the State Department extended considerable behind-the-scenes efforts both before and during the Squaw Valley Games in an attempt ensure Nationalist Chinese participation. Overall, this chapter will demonstrate that despite claims of non-involvement, the State Department specifically utilised international sport – and particularly the Olympics – as a tool of diplomacy during the Cold War. This was drawn into particularly sharp focus when the Games were being hosted on American soil, as they were in Squaw Valley in 1960.Less

Introduction

Kay Schiller and Christopher Young

in The 1972 Munich Olympics and the Making of Modern Germany

This chapter begins by discussing the bleakest day in the histories of the Olympic movement. It then notes that in the Federal Republic of the 1960s, the ducal focus on the past and the ... More

This chapter begins by discussing the bleakest day in the histories of the Olympic movement. It then notes that in the Federal Republic of the 1960s, the ducal focus on the past and the future-oriented present was writ large in debates about policy and national self-understanding. Next, the chapter discusses that the sense of modern organization—a reaching for the future while addressing the issues of the day head-on—set the climate in which a West German bud for the Olympics could be conceived and, indeed, flourish. It then details that during the planning for 1972, technocratic optimism, economic growth, and the “end of ideology” each played a vital role. This chapter also discusses the roles played by two individuals who made the West Germany Olympics possible—Willi Daume and Hans-Jochen Vogel. Lastly, the chapter examines the relationship between politics and the International Olympic Committee (IOC).Less

A Universal Dilemma

Matthew P. Llewellyn and John Gleaves

in The Rise and Fall of Olympic Amateurism

This chapter discusses how amateurism freely evolved into an organic and malleable construct as it spread and diffused around the globe. From its institutional seedbed in Britain, amateurism would ... More

This chapter discusses how amateurism freely evolved into an organic and malleable construct as it spread and diffused around the globe. From its institutional seedbed in Britain, amateurism would become an enduring ideology that influenced the Olympic Movement for nearly a century. Since the revival of the Olympic Movement in 1894, Coubertin and his fellow International Olympic Committee (IOC) patriarchs labored in vain to unify European and North American nations behind a consistent, workable definition of an amateur. However, the sheer breadth and malleability of the ideology of amateurism meant that it proved to be impossible for the IOC to regulate the status of an amateur on a global scale. In the age of increasing codification and standardization in sport, in part through the gradual establishment of national and international sports federations, amateurism proved resistant to consistency and strict universal regulation.Less

Decentring US sports diplomacy: the 1980 Moscow boycott through contemporary Asian–African perspectives^*

Joseph Eaton (ed.)

in Sport and diplomacy: Games within games

The chapter reevaluates the 1980 boycott of the Moscow summer games, challenging the conventional wisdom that that boycott was a failure. Historians of sport and diplomacy have usually studied the ... More

The chapter reevaluates the 1980 boycott of the Moscow summer games, challenging the conventional wisdom that that boycott was a failure. Historians of sport and diplomacy have usually studied the 1980 boycott through the strained efforts of US President Jimmy Carter’s Administration’s clumsy struggles to rally NATO allies, Australia, and traditional Olympic sporting powers into not going to Moscow in retaliation for the December 1979 Soviet invasion of Afghanistan. In fact, American sports diplomacy might be judged differently when seen from the perspectives of non-Western and non-sporting nations, particularly in Africa and Asia. Using media and governmental primary sources from a variety of nations. More precisely, engagement in the boycott suited nationalistic purpose as perceived in 1980. “Carter’s boycott” was effectively localized/nationalized, if outside Carter’s stated aim of making the Soviets pay a price for their aggression in Afghanistan. Rather than reading the 1980 boycott through the lens of the Soviet invasion and the beginnings of the Second Cold War, contemporary non-Western perspectives on the boycott showed a wide breath of positive interpretations/results from Olympic nonparticipation– ranging from public display of governmental fiscal austerity by corrupt regimes, to support for a growing pan-Islamic movement, to enforcing authoritarian rule at home.Less

The Chicago Bid to Host the 2016 Olympics: Much Promised, Little Learned

Larry Bennett, Michael Bennett, and Stephen Alexander

Larry Bennett, Roberta Garner, and Euan Hague (eds)

in Neoliberal Chicago

The Chicago bid to host the 2016 Olympics represented a particular variety of neoliberal policy action: a low-cost physical plan, largely dependent on private financing. It is quite possible that ... More

The Chicago bid to host the 2016 Olympics represented a particular variety of neoliberal policy action: a low-cost physical plan, largely dependent on private financing. It is quite possible that Chicago’s quick rejection in the final round of the host city competition was due to the more robust, state-supported bids mounted by its competitors, Madrid, Rio de Janeiro, and Tokyo. Despite the modest physical plan developed by the Chicago 2016 Committee, local proponents made grandiose claims regarding the economic impact of the proposed Chicago Games. This chapter provides an overview of the Chicago Olympic proposal: the process for developing the Olympic bid, the bid’s physical and fiscal plans. Additionally, interviews with Chicago 2016 Committee members and staff, civic leaders, and community activists that were conducted following the rejection of the Chicago bid found that many of the details of the Chicago bid were poorly understood by local elites, and that indeed, significant flaws in the Chicago bid were generally unrecognized.Less

The United States, the Soviet Union, and the Olympic Games

Toby C. Rider

in Cold War Games: Propaganda, the Olympics, and U.S. Foreign Policy

This chapter considers the politics of the Olympic Games. The international sporting system, within which the Olympics reside, had emerged in the nineteenth and twentieth centuries as a force of ... More

This chapter considers the politics of the Olympic Games. The international sporting system, within which the Olympics reside, had emerged in the nineteenth and twentieth centuries as a force of peace and goodwill. It also grew in strength and global popularity because it was built to accommodate national rivalries. That the Olympics quickly emerged as a powerful medium to promote the state and political ideology naturally lent the festival to the propaganda battles of the Cold War. Here was a stage where deeds could be trumpeted and manipulated for psychological significance. Without a doubt, the games provided a global arena for athletes from the east and west to compete head to head in a symbolic war.Less

The US vs. USSR: Gender Testing, Doping Checks, and Olympic Boycotts

Lindsay Parks Pieper

in Sex Testing: Gender Policing in Women's Sports

While the US–USSR rivalry dissipated somewhat in the 1970s, the two countries experienced an escalation of hostilities in the 1980s. Through athletic contests and strategic boycotts, the Olympics ... More

While the US–USSR rivalry dissipated somewhat in the 1970s, the two countries experienced an escalation of hostilities in the 1980s. Through athletic contests and strategic boycotts, the Olympics again served as a nonmilitary forum for the two superpowers to exert international dominance and demonstrate political views. This chapter evaluates the impact of the heightened animosities on sport and examines the International Olympic Committee's (IOC) response. In line with the increased international resentments between the two global powers, the International Association of Athletics Federation started to disagree with the IOC regarding the ethics of gender verification. The different opinions would eventually help dismantle sex/gender testing.Less

Is the Athlete “Right” or “Wrong”?: The IOC’s Chromosomal Construction of Womanhood, 1968–1972

Lindsay Parks Pieper

in Sex Testing: Gender Policing in Women's Sports

This chapter discusses how the international tensions that surfaced during the Cold War played a large role in the initial institution of sex verification at the 1968 Olympics. To remove the “wrong” ... More

This chapter discusses how the international tensions that surfaced during the Cold War played a large role in the initial institution of sex verification at the 1968 Olympics. To remove the “wrong” athletes from competition, the International Olympic Committee's Medical Commission mandated a chromosomal test for female participants in the 1968 Olympics. The commission adopted the buccal smear test or Barr body test, which identified chromosomal composition. Chromosomal tests bolstered a false demarcation of binary sex and promoted a gendered hierarchy in sport. Through scientific regulations, the medical commission shaped Olympic womanhood along Western lines of gender and sexuality.Less

Speaking to the Spirit of the Games: Atlanta’s Rise to Olympic City

Maurice J. Hobson

in The Legend of the Black Mecca: Politics and Class in the Making of Modern Atlanta

Chapter Five focuses on the calculated and concerted steps taken by Atlanta’s white business elite and black city government to bid for the Centennial Olympic Games. A diverse cohort of private ... More

Chapter Five focuses on the calculated and concerted steps taken by Atlanta’s white business elite and black city government to bid for the Centennial Olympic Games. A diverse cohort of private interests generated the necessary funds to give Atlanta a competitive bid for the Games was formed. This cohort included officers of Atlanta’s fortune 500 companies comprising of the Coca-Cola Company and Delta Airlines, Atlanta businessman Billy Payne, and politicians Mayors Maynard Jackson and Andrew Young. Once awarded the Centennial Games, two movements of paramount importance commenced, representing what the author calls the “olympification” of Atlanta. “Olympification” connotes the policies where urban renewal and gentrification were implemented to get Atlanta ready for the Games. The first of these movements, a joint effort between the United States Olympic Committee (USOC) and the Atlanta Organizing Committee (AOC) worked to prepare the city for the Games is of extreme importance. The second movement, the Atlanta Project, gave way to social change in Atlanta waging war against poverty within the city. Started by the former U.S. president, humanitarian and Georgia native Jimmy Carter, this project had good intentions. But in the end, it did very little for Atlanta’s poor, thus further excluding them from the popular image of Atlanta as black Mecca.Less

“One of the Most Horrid Misuses of a Scientific Method”: The Development of a Protest

Lindsay Parks Pieper

in Sex Testing: Gender Policing in Women's Sports

Although the International Olympic Committee (IOC) sought to differentiate women from men, the methods employed repeatedly illustrated the difficulty in determining the exact composition of ... More

Although the International Olympic Committee (IOC) sought to differentiate women from men, the methods employed repeatedly illustrated the difficulty in determining the exact composition of womanhood. This chapter argues that rather than showing a clear-cut biological divide, the policy highlighted a range of chromosomal varieties and DNA diversity. The IOC disregarded these well-documented variations and continued testing. Officials never discovered a man posing as a woman; however, several female athletes with biological differences were barred from competition. Eventually, protests by medical authorities and athletes in the 1980s encouraged the IOC to abandon all gender verification practices. For the 1992 Albertville Winter and Barcelona Summer Olympics, the IOC replaced the chromatin exam with PCR testing. Because many people believed that substituting one scientific method with another did not solve the practical nor ethical problems of verification, those who were opposed to laboratory testing continued to fight for the IOC to terminate the practice.Less

“Gender Testing Per Se Is No Longer Necessary”: The IAAF’s and the IOC’s Continued Control

Lindsay Parks Pieper

in Sex Testing: Gender Policing in Women's Sports

This chapter demonstrates how alternative requirements merely rendered gender verification moot. In 1992, the International Association of Athletics Federation (IAAF) terminated all mandatory gender ... More

This chapter demonstrates how alternative requirements merely rendered gender verification moot. In 1992, the International Association of Athletics Federation (IAAF) terminated all mandatory gender controls while the International Olympic Committee's (IOC) Medical Commission remained loyal to PCR testing, maintaining the procedure for the 1994 Lillehammer Olympics, 1996 Atlanta Olympics, and 1998 Nagano Olympics. As a result, the IOC experienced opposition throughout the 1990s from concerned physicians, national governments, and medically trained athletes. In 1999, the IOC Executive Board voted to stop testing. However, the medical commission did not relinquish complete control. Through suspicion-based checks, anti-doping techniques, and the Stockholm Consensus, Olympic authorities continued to uphold a binary notion of sex/gender and to promote Western norms of femininity. Thus, even though the IAAF and the IOC may have disagreed on the correct method, both organizations still believed that sex/gender control was crucial in elite sport.Less

“A Careful Inquiry to Establish Her Sex beyond a Doubt”: Sex/Gender Anxieties in Track and Field

Lindsay Parks Pieper

in Sex Testing: Gender Policing in Women's Sports

This chapter illustrates the sex-segregated framework of sport and highlights the historical threats to the sex/gender status quo. In the early twentieth century, track and field was the most popular ... More

This chapter illustrates the sex-segregated framework of sport and highlights the historical threats to the sex/gender status quo. In the early twentieth century, track and field was the most popular and prestigious Olympic pastime. It was also an activity explicitly reserved for men. Thus, when female activists successfully fought for women's inclusion in international competition, many people balked. When the International Olympic Committee reluctantly added women's track and field to the Olympic program, suspicions of male imposters immediately ensued. The supposed threat of masqueraders encouraged officials to require physical examinations of some participants. It was in track and field, then, where questions of sex/gender first surfaced and continued throughout the twentieth century.Less

Introduction

Matthew P. Llewellyn and John Gleaves

in The Rise and Fall of Olympic Amateurism

This introductory chapter sets out the book's purpose, which is to present a richly contextualized global history of the role of Olympic amateurism, from Coubertin's Olympic revival in 1894 through ... More

This introductory chapter sets out the book's purpose, which is to present a richly contextualized global history of the role of Olympic amateurism, from Coubertin's Olympic revival in 1894 through the presidency of Juan Antonio Samaranch and the advent of open professionalism during the late 1980s and 1990s. The social origins of amateurism sprung to life not from ancient Greece, but from Victorian Britain, where an upper-middle-class desire to set themselves apart from the perceived morally corrupt working classes employed amateurism as a legitimating ideology for elitist sporting preserves. The participatory and universal growth of the Olympic Games in the ensuing decades precipitated the emergence of political and commercial forces within the Olympic arena. The encroachment of governments eager to exploit the games for propaganda rewards, as well as commercial interests seeking to peddle products stamped with Olympic insignia, sullied the avowed sanctity of Olympic amateurism.Less

“East Germany’s Mighty Sports Machine”: Steroids, Nationalism, and Femininity Testing

Lindsay Parks Pieper

in Sex Testing: Gender Policing in Women's Sports

The International Olympic Committee (IOC) created its medical commission in order to deter athletes from consuming performance-enhancing substances and to bar sex/gender-transgressive women from ... More

The International Olympic Committee (IOC) created its medical commission in order to deter athletes from consuming performance-enhancing substances and to bar sex/gender-transgressive women from competition. This chapter discusses how the purposes of doping controls and sex tests became conflated in the 1970s. The victories of the German Democratic Republic at the 1976 Olympics allowed the IOC to envision all muscular women as unethical, substance-enhanced cheaters. Moreover, the IOC's belief in categorical divisions proliferated throughout the West. Although the subject was never mentioned explicitly, white Western women served as the foils to the supposed transgressors of femininity, reinscribing certain stereotypes about women of color.Less