The Games: A Global History of the Olympics

550 Pages·2016·28.699 MB·English

by  David Goldblatt

DAVID GOLDBLATT
WINNER OF THE 2015 WILLIAM HILL SPORTS BOOK OF THE YEAR
THE
GAMES
‘Goldblatt manages to combine
being extremely readable
with being extremely serious’
SIMON KUPER
A GLOBAL HISTORY OF THE OLYMPICS
The Olympic Games have become the
single greatest festival of a universal and
cosmopolitan humanity. Seventeen days of
sporting competition watched in every country
on the planet, it is simply the greatest show
on earth. Yet when the modern games were
inaugurated in Athens in 1896, the founders
thought them a ‘display of manly virtue’, an
athletic celebration of the kind of amateur
gentleman that would rule the world. How was
such a ritual invented? Why did it prosper and
how has it been so utterly transformed?
In The Games, David Goldblatt - winner of the
2015 William Hill Sports Book of the Year Award
- takes on a breathtakingly ambitious search
for the answers and brilliantly unravels the
complex strands of this history. Beginning with
the Olympics as a sporting side show and their
transformation into a global media spectacular
care of Hollywood and the Nazi Party, The Games
shows how sport and the Olympics have been
a battlefield in the global cold war, a defining
moment for our epoch of social and
economic change.
I\luminated with dazzling vignettes from over a
century of Olympic competition, this stunningly
researched history captures the excitement 1C89705 779
of sporting brilliance and the kaleidoscopic
experience of the Games. It shows us how this
sporting spectacle has come to reflect the world
we hope to inhabit and the one we actually
live in.
£20
THE GAMES
Also by David Goldblatt
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THE FOOTBALL BOOK
THE GAME OF OUR LIVES
FUTEBOL NATION
DAVID GOLDBLATT
THE GAMES
A GLOBAL HISTORY OF THE OLYMPICS
MACMILLAN
First published 2016 by Macmillan
an imprint of Pan Macmillan
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Associated companies throughout the world
www.panmacmillan.com
ISBN 978-1-4472-9884-7
Copyright © David Goldblatt 2016
The right of David Goldblatt to be identified as the
author of this work has been asserted by him in accordance
with the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988.
The picture credits on page 518 constitute an extension of this copyright page.
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Contents
List of Illustrations vii
Introduction 1
1: THIS GRANDIOSE AND SALUTARY TASK
The Reinvention of the Olympic Games 5
2: ALL THE FUN OF THE FAIR
The Olympics at the End of the Belle Epoque 53
3: NOT THE ONLY GAME IN TOWN
The Olympics and Its Challengers in the 1920s 93
4: IT’S SHOWTIME!
The Olympics as Spectacle 147
5: SMALL WAS BEAUTIFUL
The Lost Worlds of the Post-war Olympics 193
6: THE IMAGE IS STILL THERE
Spectacle versus Anti-Spectacle at the Games 231
7: THINGS FALL APART
Bankruptcy, Boycotts and the End of Amateurism 287
8: BOOM!
The Globalization of the Olympics after the Cold War 327
9: GOING SOUTH
The Olympics in the New World Order 389
Conclusion 437
Notes 447
Index 491

List of Illustrations
The Baron: Pierre Fredy, Baron de Coubertin.
The first International Olympic Committee. From left to right: standing —
Gebhardt, Guth-Jarkovsky, Kemeney, Balck; seated — Coubertin, Vikelas,
Butovsky.
Making History: Athens 1896.
— The Martial Art of the European Aristocracy: Fencing at the Zappeion.
— Adisplay of manly virtues’. Three of Denmark’s Olympian gentlemen.
From left to right: Schmidt (track), Nielsen (fencing) and Jensen
(weightlifting and shooting).
Human Zoos and Freak Shows.
— St Louis, 1904: An Ainu man competing at the St Louis Anthropology
Days.
— Imperial Circus. London 1908: Italy’s marathon runner Dorando Pietri
falls for the third time in the stadium and is illegally helped to his feet.
A challenge from below, the Worker’s Olympics: Vienna 1931, Antwerp 1937.
— Working-class super heroes.
— ‘Proletarians of the world, unite through sport!’
It’s Showtime! Los Angeles 1932.
— Sun, Sea, Sand and Sport. The Olympics done the LA way.
— Antiquity comes to Hollywood. A concrete coliseum for the twentieth
century.
The Olympic Family, Garmisch-Partenkirchen, 1936. From left to right:
Rudolf Hess, Henri de Baillet-Latour and Adolf Hitler at the opening
ceremony of the 1936 Winter games.
. Not just Hitler’s Games, Berlin 1936. The Indian Hockey Team. They would go
on to thrash Nazi Germany in the final 8-1.
Coming on Strong, Amsterdam 1928, London 1948.
— Lina Radke wins the only women’s 800m at the games before the 1960s.
— Fanny Blankers-Koen wins the 200m.
From Ephebes to Abstraction: Olympic posters, 1912 to 1964.
The Empire Strikes Back, Rome 1960: the Ethiopian Abebe Bikila wins the
marathon beneath the Arch of Constantine.
The Science Fiction Olympics, Tokyo 1964: Tange Kenzo’s Yoyogi National
Gymnasium.
The Image Remains, Mexico 1968.
— Tommie Smith (centre) and John Carlos give the black power salute
supported by Australian Peter Norman.
— Bob Beamon jumps 8.9m and off the scale.
Spectacle vs Anti-Spectacle, Munich 1972, Los Angeles 1984.
— Armed police, live on German television, drop onto the roof above the
apartments where the Israeli Olympic team are being held hostage.
— Lionel Richie takes fiesta to the closing ceremony.
Perfection, Montreal 1976: Rumanian teenager Nadia Comaneci on the beam —
the first ever performance to be awarded a perfect score of 10.
For Love of Brand and Country, Barcelona 1992.
— The Dream Team, (left to right) Larry Bird, Scottie Pippin, Michael Jordan,
Clyde Drexler, Karl Malone, receive their gold medals.
— The view from the Montjuic Aquatics Complex.
Welcome Home, Athens 2004.
— The Hellinikon Olympic canoe and kayak centre, ten years after the
games.
— The Olympic Swimming Complex remains unused to this day.
The Anti-Olympics, Vancouver 2010 and Rio 2016.
— Aman protests near the newly opened Olympic tent village in downtown
Vancouver.
— Another family home in Villa Autodromo is demolished, under guard,
to make way for the Olympic Park.