The modern Olympic movement really got off the ground in the 1890s, according to professor Wagg: “it was put together by upper class males, particularly in France, and the amateurism which became the Olympics’ trademark was the amateurism of the European aristocrat primarily. These people defined themselves very often in relation to trade and industry, they liked to think that they had nothing to do with commerce,…the idea of taking money for sports was shunned… A lot of people were excluded from this movement; the countries that were still colonies, and also of course, women. In time an opposition movement sprung up in Europe and flourished in the 1920s, which was an Olympic movement called ‘The Workers’ Olympics,’ which was in opposition to prevailing Olympic values…”
The first Olympics where people actually signed up as representatives of their countries was in 1908, the first London Olympics,…and the international importance of the Olympics was first showcased in Berlin in 1936, which was a massively controversial Olympics featuring a huge boycott movement. The ‘Hitler Olympics’ as we know them were probably the first foretaste of the Olympics as we know them today in the sense of a major international sporting spectacle featuring strong elements of nationalism, albeit quite often benign nationalism, unlike in 1936.”
During the Cold War, the Olympics were clearly influenced by the superpowers. “The Cold War was a war in which a shot was never fired, it was a war of diplomatic maneuver and propaganda. The Olympics were a central feature of this… It is difficult to sort out the truth from the propaganda, but the preferred method was that the West played it fair, and that the Soviet Union were cheats, so there were many allegations first of all of doping, and a parallel criticism was that the Soviet athletes were full time sports people with sinecure jobs in the armed forces, which enabled them to pursue sports 24/7. I’m inclined to think there is a certain amount of hypocrisy in this, because although it’s true that many of the Soviet athletes were full time, so were many Americans… From doctors’ testimonies we know that there were a lot of doping activities going on in the West as well, on top of which there was a lot of sexism involved, as many female Soviet athletes were quite strongly built, and that offended the western idea of female beauty…”
The Olympics now seem to have been politicized and can be used by countries to achieve certain strategic aims:
“…1936 inaugurated the Olympics as a spectacle, it was made into a propaganda spectacle by the Third Reich… Countries now look to establish themselves on the world stage as major powers by staging the Olympics.”
However, according to professor Wagg, opposition to this is growing, there are real questions to be asked now about the amount of money that is spent on the Olympics. Professor Wagg also discusses the idea of the Paralympics before the end of this interesting program.
