The Cold War and the Olympics

Bibliographic Data

ID5882276
AuthorsAllen Guttmann (corresponding author)
Year1988
Volume43
Issue4
Pages554
Publication date1988-01-01
Peer ReviewedYes
Open AccessNo
TypeARTICLE
VenueInternational Journal Canada s Journal of Global Policy Analysis (JOURNAL)
Journal identifiersISSN: 0020-7020 • E-ISSN: 2052-465X
PublisherSAGE Publications (PUBLISHER • US)
DOI10.2307/40202563
OpenAlexW4256240064
LanguageEN
Citations received7

From 1952 to 1988, from the games held at Helsinki to those just completed in Seoul, one of the most dramatic aspects of the modern Olympics has been the sports rivalry between the United States and the Soviet Union. Propagandists on both sides of the Iron Curtain have presented the competition between Russian and American athletes as a portentous symbolic struggle between two ideological systems. As the games have become increasingly important in the political sphere, the success or failure of the Olympic team, as measured in the unofficial medal counts, has often overshadowed the performances of the men and women who actually ran, jumped, threw, wrestled, rode, and otherwise displayed their physical skills. President Carter's 1980 decision to use an Olympic boycott as a diplomatic weapon ended, or ought to have ended, the naive notion that the games might somehow be insulated from the international power struggle. The Soviet Union's 1984 reprisal should not have surprised anyone

Boycott · Cold war · Competition (biology · Economic history · Economics · Ideology · Medal · Political economy · Political science · Politics · Power (physics · Rivalry · Sociology · Soviet union · History · Law · Sport and Mega-Event Impacts · Sports, Gender, and Society

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