Onward to the Olympics

by Schaus, Gerald P.; Wenn, Stephen R.

• ISBN13: 9781554580422
• ISBN10: 1554580420
• Format: Paperback
• Copyright: 2007-12-07
• Publisher: Wilfrid Laurier Univ Pr

Summary

The Olympic Games have had two lives-the first lasted for a millennium with celebrations every four years at Olympia to honour the god Zeus. The second has blossomed over the past century, from a simple start in Athens in 1896 to a dazzling return to Greece in 2004. Onward to the Olympics provides both an overview and an array of insights into aspects of the Games' history. Leading North American archaeologists and historians of sport explore the origins of the Games, compare the ancient and the modern, discuss the organization and financing of such massive athletic festivals, and examine the participation ,or the troubling lack of it, by women.Onward to the Olympics bridges the historical divide between the ancient and the modern and concludes with a thought-provoking final essay that attempts to predict the future of the Olympics over the twenty-first century.

Table of Contents

Preface

Introduction

The Ancient Olympic Games through the Centuries

Politics & the Bronze Age Origins of Olympic Practices

Pindar, Heracles the Idaean Dactyl, & the Foundation of the Olympic Games

The First Olympic Games

The Transformation of Athletics in Sixth-Century Greece

The Ancient Olympics & Their Ideals

Olympic Losers: Why Athletes Who Did Not Win at Olympia Are Remembered

Judges & Judging at the Ancient Olympic Games

Heroic & Athletic Sortition at Ancient Olympia

Fabulous Females & Ancient Olympia

The Halma: A Running or Standing Jump?

Connections between Olympia & Stymphalus

Commemorative Cash: The Coins of the Ancient & Modern Olympics

The Olympic Games in Modern Times

Duke Kahanamoku -- Olympic Champion & Uncle Sam's Adopted Son: The Cultural Text of a Hawaiian Conqueror

Carl Diem's Inspiration for the Torch Relay? Jan Wils, Amsterdam 1928, & the Origin of the Olympic Flame

The Great Progression: A Content Analysis of the Lake Placid News & the Los Angeles Times' Treatment of the 1932 Olympics

Womanizing Olympic Athletes: Policy & Practice during the Avery Brundage Era

The Bridge to Change: The 1976 Montreal Olympic Games, South African Apartheid Policy, & the Olympic Boycott Paradigm

Splitting Hairs: The Struggle between the Canadian Federal Government & the Organizing Committee of 1976 Torontolympiad Concerning South African Participation

Juan Antonio Samaranch's Score Sheet: Revenue Generation & the Olympic Movement, 1980-2001

Olympic Ideals: Pragmatic Method & the Future of the Games

"To Construct a Better & More Peaceful World", or "War Minus the Shooting"?: The Olympic Movement's Second Century

Index

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