Olympika: The International Journal of Olympic Studies

"Reality is a bitch. It's all about vision, a gift and this big wooden horse waiting outside the gate." --Salt Lake City Weekly, 18 July 2002. While it is the Games themselves that first attracts and then sustains our attention, the aftermath--the...

Introduction By going to Beijing in the summer of 2008, the Olympic Games may seem to have ventured farther than ever from their cultural origin in ancient Olympia, Greece. (1) This can be viewed as a triumph--but a triumph of what? Some may see...

It is well documented that the modern Olympic Games (i.e., since 1896) are a setting for melodramatic hubris. For example, flags flying or rising into the rafters, national anthems playing, and the ceremonial arrival, collection, and announcement of...

R.K. Barney, J. Forsyth & M.K Heine (eds.). Rethinking Matters Olympic: Investigations into the Socio-Cultural Study of the Modern Olympic Movement. iv, 517 pp. London, ON: ICOS, 2010. ISBN: 0-7714-2518-X. Order directly from Dr. R.K. Barney,...

From ancient times until late in the nineteenth century, Western society considered sport a male preserve. From the late nineteenth century sport became contested terrain for gender relations, and over the course of the twentieth century many women,...

Introduction The history of sport in Cuba is often partitioned between two phases, not merely for the convenience of the historian, but mainly because there is such a clear demarcation line--sport before 1959, enjoyed by the rich, limited for the...

With a century of history to its credit, the Olympic programme has evolved (1) considerably from that of the first modern Olympic Games in Athens, which included 9 sports and 43 events. (2) Without fail, each completely new sporting discipline, and...

The First London Olympics--1908, by Rebecca Jenkins (London, UK: Piatkus Books, 2008). In 1971 Richard Mandell published his acclaimed classic, The Nazi Olympics, the first scholarly treatment of a specific Olympic Games. Mandell's book arrived...

Olympic Dreams: China and Sports, 1895-2008, by Xu Guoqi (Harvard University Press, 2008). In advance of most recent Summer Olympics, the public can be assured of seeing a number of offerings from the publishing industry on a variety of aspects...

Lawrence W. Judge, Jeffrey Petersen, and Matt Lyndunn, "The Best Kept Secret in Sports: The 2010 Youth Olympic Games" International Review for the Sociology of Sport 44, no. 2-3 (2009), 173-191. In 2007, International Olympic Committee (IOC) president,...

Evelyn Mertin, "Presenting Heroes: Athletes as Role Models for the New Soviet Person," International Journal of the History of Sport 26, no. 4 (March 2009), 469483. In this article, Evelyn Mertin goes where few scholars have adequately tread before,...

ARTICLE I: The Executive Council The framing and modifications of by-laws governing the structure and operation of the Centre shall be the business of the Executive Council (hereafter referred to as Council). Council shall serve as a board which...

Introduction The notion of globalization has become commonplace. We find it in everyday conversation, throughout news reports, within scholarly discourse--seemingly everywhere. On closer inspection, however, we observe that what is meant by globalization...

On July 6, 2005 the International Olympic Committee (IOC) awarded the 2012 summer Olympic Games to the city of London. In defeating a highly favored Paris bid, the British capital realized the unrivaled prospect of hosting the summer games for the...

During the twenty years of Avery Brundage's Presidency (1952-1972), the IOC faced major economic and political challenges. The growing financial appeal of sport, increased by media attention, the tensions of the cold war and the emergence of post-imperial...

R.K. Barney, M.K Heine, K.B. Wamsley & G.H MacDonald (eds.). Pathways. Critiques and Discourse in Olympic Research. iv, 556 pp. London, ON: ICOS, 2008. ISBN: 0-7714-2518-X Order directly from Dr. R.K. Barney, Acting Director of ICOS--rkbarney@uwo.ca...

ARTICLE I: The Executive Council The framing and modifications of by-laws governing the structure and operation of the Centre shall be the business of the Executive Council (hereafter referred to as Council). Council shall serve as a board...

Since the early twentieth century, the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, otherwise called the LDS or Mormon church, has attempted to integrate itself more fully into American culture while maintaining its traditional morality and exclusive...

Argentine elites have shown interest in hosting the Olympic Games in Buenos Aires at various times during the twentieth century. Expressions of interest intensified after the creation of a stable national Olympic bureaucracy in the 1920s. The last...

Among historic Olympic events, one that is frequently mentioned but rarely understood is the USA's hockey win over the Soviet Union (USSR) at Lake Placid on 22 February 1980. Research into that Olympic tournament finds frequent references to that game...

Stephen Wassong, "Pierre De Coubertin's Studies In and About the USA," Journal of Olympic History 13 (2006), 31-37. Reviewed by Toby Rider. Looking beyond the standard premise that Coubertin's sojourns in the U.S. were for the purpose of attracting...

Brian Bridges, "Reluctant Mediator: Hong Kong, the two Koreas and the Tokyo Olympics," International Journal of the History of Sport 24, no. 3 (2007), 375-391. Reviewed by Terry Gitersos. Brian Bridges recounts the fascinating story of the diplomatic...

Ann E. Cudd, "Sporting Metaphors: Competition and the Ethos of Capitalism," Journal of the Philosophy of Sport, 2007, 52-67. Reviewed by Natalie Szudy. In this article, Ann E. Cudd explores the use of common sporting metaphors as general descriptors...

Citius, Altius, Fortius! To what extent does the motto of the Olympics relate to Torino 2006? Has the XXth edition of the Olympic Winter Games (OWG) continued the positive trend whereby each edition, with only a few exceptions, surpasses the one before?...

The 1956 United States Olympic team propelled the sport of basketball forward with its high-scoring and fast-breaking style. In Bill Russell, with his stunning combination of size, speed, timing, and creativity, the team provided a new international...

During John Jewett Garland's two decades of service on the International Olympic Committee (IOC), voices on the European Continent and some grim-faced American Olympic leaders, warned Garland of the "awful dangers" of rapidly growing professionalism...

Florence Carpentier and Jean-Pierre Lefevre, "The Modern Olympic Movement, Women's Sport and the Social Order During the Inter-war Period," The International Journal of the History of Sport 23, no. 7 (2006), pp. 1112-1127. Throughout the Modern...

Ryan Eyford, "From Prairie Goolies to Canadian Cyclones: The Transformation of the 1920 Winnipeg Falcons," Sport History Review no. 37 (2006), pp. 5-18. Reviewed by Anne Warner. Because it is undeniably entrenched in both the historical and current...

Graham Knight, Margaret MacNeil, and Peter Donnelly, "The Disappointment Games: Narratives of Olympic Failure in Canada and New Zealand," International Review for the Sociology of Sport 40, no. 1 (2005), pp. 25-51. Reviewed by Megan Popovic. In...

N.B. Crowther, R.K. Barney & M.K Heine, eds. Cultural Imperialism in Action: Critiques in the Global Olympic Trust. iv, 421 pp. London, ON: ICOS, 2006. ISBN: 0-7714-2518-X [ILLUSTRATION OMITTED] Order directly from Dr. Nigel B. Crowther,...