In the plethora of TV programmes about the Olympics, one recent BBC offering has really stood out: ‘Faster, higher, stronger’, a one hour broadcast which looks in almost forensic detail at specific Olympic events like the 100 metres, swimming, the metric mile & gymnastics.

The first programme in the series – the 100 metres – was a micro-analysis of what happens within that crucial 10 seconds, and described the ingredients for winning: the perfect start (aided nowadays by starting blocks and the runner’s crucial angle of ascent); explosive muscular power in the central stage of the event which generates crucial forward propulsion; the ability to stave off the inevitable deceleration in the last few metres, and finally the crucial dip towards the line.

Great runners from the past and present were featured in fast and slow motion, and these talked a lot about attitude: the crucial frame of mind in which you really believe you can win (and which you can hopefully convey to your opponents).

One of our articles on the Sport and Society website takes a similar look at the finer details of an event: ‘Running [the 400m] with Jon Silman’ describes the actual experiences, physical & mental, undergone by an athlete in the course of a race (complete with wonderful images by Rebecca Andrews). It gives us a window into something which normally flashes by, and shows how time can stand still for the runner himself. Interestingly enough, this idea about the relativity of time is emphasised by the 100 metre runners in the BBC programme. One of them suggests that the 10 seconds (now rather less than 10 in fact) may seem impossibly fast to the crowd observing it, but to the runners it feels almost like a ‘life time’ . Here's a link to Tanya's article below:

http://www.bl.uk/sportandsociety/exploresocsci/sportsoc/sociology/articles/running400.pdf

 This idea of how time can be psychologically compressed or expanded according to the nature of the physical event is a fascinating one and gives us some idea of how essential  it is to have the right (i.e., the appropriate) mindset in a race. The quickness of the 100 metres requires a corresponding mental shorthand: an ability to process all the emotional elements of a race (and its preliminaries) in quick time.  Marathon runners have totally different issues to face, and no less difficult ones. No wonder sports psychology is a burgeoning field.

 The  crucial nature of getting it right in the 100 metres, and the drama created by the luminaries of the event have spawned numerous books and articles over many years, some of which are listed below. It would be interesting to see how speed theory has progressed since the first Olympic sprint final saw a winner’s time of 12 seconds.

 References

 Duncanson, Neil The fastest men on Earth: the story of the men’s 100 metre Olympic champions London: Andre Deutsch, 2011

London reference collections shelfmark: YK.2012.a.13888

 Sands, Robert R Instant acceleration: living in the fast lane: the cultural identity of speed Lanham, Md; London: University press of America, 1995

London reference collections shelfmark: YC.1995.a.2129

 Morton, J W How to run 100 yards London: British Sports Publishing, 1906

London reference collections shelfmark: 07908.1.14/9

 Goater, Julian; Melvin, Don The art of running faster Champaign, IL: Human Kinetics, 2012

London reference collections shelfmark:YK.2012.b.5716

 

 

Simone Bacchini writes:

For the first time ever, Saudi Arabia will enter female athletes in this year’s Olympics. That has to be a good thing. Although what the real effect of this decision are going to be for ordinary Saudi women remains to be seen, it is certainly a step (albeit a small one) in the road to full emancipation for women in that country. Optimism will need to be tempered: what a few women will be able to do in London must be weighed against what many more still won’t be allowed to do back in Riyadh and – to be fair – in many other places across the globe. 

On the face of it, the Olympic enterprise can indeed be a force for good. At times, the Games can live up to its ideals of – among other things – fairness and equality and become a force for good. When this happens, we should all celebrate, even if sport doesn’t interest us in the least. 

However, one victory – one achievement of the Olympics and, more generally, of sport – should not blind us to the fact that sport, with its discursive and material practices, can be the very site where oppression, prejudice, and inequalities are perpetrated. And in the West, as well as in societies far removed from the places that gave rise to this tradition. In spite of much talk about equality, the ways in which female athletes – to name just one group – are represented in the print and broadcast media are still awash with old-fashioned gender stereotypes and tropes. 

Only recently, the idea that women boxers ought to wear skirts when competing at London 2012 was floated by none other than the Amateur International Boxing Association (and promptly rejected, one must say). One of the reasons given for this request was that the piece of cloth would be beneficial to – deep breath – spectators, who might find it easier to identify the competitors as, well, as women. In a burst of quick with, British lightweight champion Natasha Jonas said: "Personally, I think it's more for the aesthetics; nothing practical is going to come from wearing a skirt. The only people who would want to see women in skirts are men.” Discussion closed. 

More and more women are taking part in competitive sports; yet, except in rare cases, the coverage that such sports attract is still quantitatively inferior to that of male-dominated sporting events. Maybe not as many women are interested in competitive sports; less demand is thus reflected in less coverage. I’m not sure that this explanation is true. Just to give the example of my office, women appear to be as interested as men, if not more. My own two bosses, just to give an example, are far more knowledgeable that I am on all sorts of sports and much keener spectators. 

Yet, there is still an unbalance in the way that female achievements in sports are reported. This is not only to do with the quantity of coverage, but with its quality. It is still possible to identify one type of discourse (in the sense of an accumulation of language practices and text-types) around sporting women and a different one about sporting men. Given that reality is often created, sustained, and maintained through language, this should make us think. To give a small example (which, by the way, applies to fields other than sport): why is it still common to refer to and comment on female athletes’ physical appearance and not, or extremely rarely, on men’s. Coincidence? I don’t think so. 

In the coming weeks, the Sport and Society website will publish an article on the linguistic representation of Russian female gymnasts in the post-Soviet press, just to give an example. The opportunities for research in this field are countless. The road to equality, then, leads both to the training field and to a library’s reading rooms. Stay tuned.

It is certainly very depressing – if the Sunday Times’ claims are true – that tickets for London 2012 are being sold on the black market for huge sums. According to Times reporters, officials and agents from over 50 countries have been using their national allocation of Games tickets to make money by re-selling them at a big mark up, which is strictly against IOC rules. Heavy sanctions are threatened by the IOC if the dossier submitted by the newspaper leads to convictions of the individuals concerned.

 Lord Coe thinks it’s too late now to resolve the problem in time for London 2012, and he is probably right: the Games are due to begin in a little over a month’s time, and suggestions that tickets sold in this way should be ‘cancelled’ are far too complicated to implement at this stage. Justice must definitely be seen to be done however, if it becomes apparent that tickets have slipped through the net of regulation.

 Cynicism about the Olympic and Paralympic Games often centres on ‘double standards’ and the belief that what is said is not actually the same as what is done. The official Games discourse claims the moral high ground by emphasising excellence, honest endeavour, peace and inclusiveness. This inevitably means that the Olympic Movement is especially vulnerable to accusations that the opposite is sometimes true. Public comments on this story on the BBC website go straight to the heart of the matter by invoking the contrast between the difficulty of getting Olympic tickets in this country and the availability of large numbers of tickets to foreign countries which have ended up on the black market.

 It’s not a good look. And such revelations inevitably drag all sorts of other prejudices along in their wake. The notion of elites and their entitlements is earning a particularly bad press in the current economic climate, and it is clear that the very word elite has to be handled extremely carefully -  particularly by the Olympic Movement. From the athletes’ point of view it has an unequivocal meaning, a meaning which can be justified by official records, by medals won and by training periods logged. Used outside the athletic arena, the word takes on a different connotation, one of self-styled importance, or importance earned by financial and strategic rather than physical power. In these days of economic and political uncertainty, ‘elites’ like celebrities and other VIPs are increasingly looked upon with suspicion, perhaps as receivers of free tickets; or as those who sell them on, or buy them at inflated prices.

 The IOC has consequently been forced to take this situation of black market tickets very seriously and has convened an emergency session to investigate the problem. As usual, more transparency about the allocation of tickets, who receives them and upon what basis, is needed. If it is too late to bring this about for the London 2012 Games then measures should be put in place to ensure a level playing field for the next occasion.

 

‘Never go on stage with children or animals’ goes the old proverb, but clearly, Danny Boyle doesn’t believe a word of it. Great was my amazement when I read about the details of the Olympics opening ceremony on the BBC website today. The idea of tracing the history of the nation through the concept of the ‘countryside’ is a wonderful idea; what makes me boggle is the cast of animals who will be involved, to whit: 30 sheep, 12 horses, 3 cows, 2 goats, 10 chickens, 10 ducks, 9 geese and 3 sheepdogs.

Now unless these animals are acting professionals my knowledge of these creatures suggests to me that there is bound to be hell to pay. Geese have firm ideas about what they will and won’t do (chasing people and making a racket belonging to the first category); horses have serious issues about noise and hulabuloo and will certainly pretend to have fits even if they don’t really mean it; the goats will butt the athletes and the cows will attack the sheepdogs. The chickens will roost somewhere embarrassing. Quite apart from such considerations, the purist might suggest that these numbers of animals aren’t actually enough to represent the UK’s combined horsehood, goathood or whatever. Two goats? Why just two, and where are the pigs?

The other more serious concern I have is that ordinary farm animals will be disturbed by all the razamatazz. The dogs will love performing on the world stage, but the rest might find it traumatic – as has been pointed out in the Press today - so I’m hoping that the creatures concerned will have been acclimatised to son et lumiere in some way. The RSPCA is said to have the whole thing in hand.

The alternative perhaps is to make use of the wonderful warhorse puppets or to try a comic turn with two blokes dressed as pantomime animals; and actually why wouldn’t we do something like this? Pantomime has flourished in these Isles for generations.

So it looks like London 2012 is prepared to live dangerously, which is to be praised rather than denigrated. The idea of a less regimented, more complex, more spontaneous, more humorous ceremony sounds very appropriate. One gets rather weary of the relentless solemnity associated with great events, and the Olympic and Paralympic Games might one day sink under the weight of their own gravitas. So let’s try and herd cats and see where it takes us.

 As far as I am aware, animals have never formed part of a Games opening ceremony – apart from the symbolic release of doves, which formed part of the ancient Greek games celebrations and which has been followed faithfully in the revived Games. If anyone knows of any occasion though, I’d be interested to hear about it.

The usefulness of the conference as a means of exchanging ideas and creating networks is undeniable. Standing with a cup of coffee before the event starts, discovering acquaintances in common and discussing the latest news in the world of research - its new appointments, projects, grant applications and discoveries – is an essential, and a satisfying, part of pursuing one’s professional life. In fact many of my greatest discoveries have been made with a coffee in one hand and one of those plastic name badges on my shoulder.

 A recent conference on sport resources held at the British Library on the 21^st of May brought the value of the academic conference very much to the forefront of my mind. Organised by myself, and my colleague Philippa Marks from the Arts and Humanities section of the Library, the event focused on sports-related materials held by the BL, and also on current sports research, represented by our friends from the world of academia, Professors Andrew Sparkes, Kath Woodward, John Horne and Matthew Taylor.

 This was the first ever conference held here to focus on the Library’s sports resources, and the BL’s curatorial staff made the most of the occasion: Stewart Gillies from newspaper collections gave a taster of press reporting on the Olympic Games and on sport more generally, taking us back to sports journalism from the Victorian age, and we were transported back even further by Karen Limper-Herz who showed some fascinating images from a 16^th century swimming manual, and from early manuals of horsemanship and fencing. Other curators had things to say about such diverse subjects as Dutch pole vaulting; sport under Russian communism, the oral history of athletics; cycling and lawn tennis, so there was a huge amount for the audience to get to grips with. Our point, as always, was to emphasise the sheer amount of sports stuff we have here, and to encourage people to use it.

 Thanks to sponsorship from the publisher Routledge, we were able to produce a booklet to accompany the conference which contains most of the presentations, as well as a number of articles by curators who were unable to present. Copies were given to all the participants and we are about to put an online version on the BL website which will be continually updated with more sports resources information. Watch this space for news about when that will be available.

The conference ended with the awarding of gold medals (chocolate ones) to the speakers and to other contributors. Here are the organisers handing the supreme acolade to Dr Phil Hatfield who is clearly relieved that he didn't peak too early.

 

Simone Bacchini writes:

Can the Olympics (or any other mass event, for that matter) truly be apolitical? They must; some will say. They are; others will insist. 

The lofty principles of modern Olympism are enshrined in the Olympic Charter (2011). “Olympism is a philosophy of life”, states article 1 of the Preamble to this very lengthy document (95 pages!). It “seeks to create a way of life based on the joy of effort, the educational value of good example, social responsibility and respect for universal fundamental ethical principles.” All well so far. To quote it more fully, Article 1 says that: 

Olympism s a philosophy of life, exalting and combining in a balanced whole the qualities of body, will and mind. Blending sport with culture and education, Olympism seeks to create a way of life based on the joy of effort, the educational value of good example, social responsibility and respect for universal fundamental ethical principles (my emphasis). 

It seems to me – and, obviously, this is only my personal opinion – that such aims are eminently political. Not in the sense of requiring specific political affiliation or allegiances but rather because their essence is political. To be achieved, they necessitate the kind of multi-level engagement and the managing and smoothing of conflicts that are the business of all political action. Unless, of course, one believes the often repeated claim that the mere engagement in organised sporting activity will result, as if by magic, in peace, harmony, and mutual understanding. 

The Olympics are also political for other reasons. Their mere existence depends on the political will of Governments and Governmental bodies to make them happen. The intense negotiations between the IOC and Governments before and following a bid and in the period preceding the staging of a Games are testimony to this. And the staging of the Games itself depends on instances of political will, such as public funding for sporting venues, or more controversial actions that demand political will, such as forced evictions or the enforcement of specific trading and branding laws, not to mention security and surveillance operations and various human rights issues and controversies. 

For the IOC to maintain that these are matters over which it has no influence is at best naïve. The modern Olympics have become a giant – a testimony to their success; and size, on the world stage, does matter. With each bid, one can see the lengths to which countries go to host a Games. This must be accompanied by ever increasing responsibility on the part of bidding cities and the IOC. 

Presumably, some people will always be opposed to the Olympics, no matter what. Others are perfectly happy to enjoy a big party and admire an astonishing spectacle but refuse to give up all criticism for the fear of being labelled ‘spoilsports’ or something along those lines. 

Perhaps doing away with much of current rhetoric around the Olympics is the best legacy that athletes, spectators, host cities, and organisers can hope for.

 

 

References 

Jefferson Lenskyj, H. and Wagg, S. (eds.) (2012) The Palgrave Handbook of Olympic Studies. Basingstoke: Palgrave MacMillan.

London reference collections shelfmark: SPIS 796.48 OLY 12

 

Jefferson Lenskyj, H. (2008) Olympic Industry Resistance: Challenging Olympic Power and Propaganda. Albany, NY: SUNY.

London reference collections shelfmark: YK.2009.a.21648

 

O’Bonsawin, C.M. (2010) “’No Olympics on stolen land’: contesting Olympic narratives and asserting indigenous rights within the discourse of the 2010Vancouver Games”, Sport in Society: Cultures, Commerce, Media, Politics. 13:1, 143-156.

 

General Reference Collection: ZC.9.a.7405

 

According to my newspaper last week the appearance of cygnets on our lakes marks the official start of summer. However, I tend to mark this by looking at the starting dates for blockbuster events, and – which won’t be news to you - there is no shortage of these this year. Quite apart from the obvious ones, there are several gems to be held here at the British Library which might – quite understandably, given the competition, have escaped your notice.

 

First up is Olympex 2012: collecting the Olympic Games, which runs from 24 July to 9 September here at St Pancras, and which is a special exhibition presented jointly by the International Olympic Committee and the British Library. Admission is free, and it will be well worth a look, particularly if you are keen on the collecting & memorabilia side of the Olympic Games or on Olympic iconography more generally.

 

Unusually for the Library, the exhibition is based not on our collections (although we do, of course, have many Olympics-related materials) but upon the collections of private individuals. There will be more than 2500 stamps on display – showing how the imagery of the Olympics has changed over time - as well as handwritten postcards and letters from athletes, spectators and public figures. One of the themes will focus on the three occasions upon which London has acted as the host city (in 1908, 1948 and 2012) so a treat is in store for nostalgia seekers! Two fascinating evening talks accompany the exhibition and these can be booked online. Follow this link for further information:

 

http://www.bl.uk/whatson/exhibitions/olympex2012/index.html

 

Olympex is by no means a one-off event, but takes place during every Olympic Games and proves a magnet for Games philately enthusiasts. Olympex 2008 in Beijing was a huge success, giving ample evidence – judging from the queues of eager participants -  that Chinese collectors are becoming involved in the hobby in a very big way.  But non collectors will be interested too, because the Olympic stamps are clearly works of art in themselves and can tell us a great deal about the way the Games are regarded, on both the political and personal levels. The issuing of them dates right back to the Athens Games of 1896 and the Olympic stamp issue is a significant part of the host country postal administration’s contribution to the cultural side of the event. In addition around 100 nations will celebrate the summer Games with issues of their own.

 

So if you can, try and pay us a visit!

 

Simone Bacchini writes:

Do you want to learn about the psychology and sociology of sport participation? Read a novel. 

That’s what – unexpectedly – has recently happened to me. I’ve just finished, and thoroughly enjoyed, Black Swann Green, by David Mitchell. Set in 1982, it’s the story of Jason Taylor, a middle-class, twelve-year old boy living in rural England. Against the background of an almost idyllic countryside, Mitchell takes the reader through the joys and turmoil of growing up. 

The problems of Britain in the Eighties – the Falklands war, a recession, unemployment (sounds familiar?) – intertwine with Jason’s own challenges, like trying to fit in at school whilst finding and affirming his own identity; coping with bullying, and the realisation that human relationships are always complex and often fragile. I know, this isn’t a literary blog; but as is often the case, literature can reveal more about behaviour than many a research paper (and in much more enjoyable language). 

At one point, whilst wandering through the woods, the young protagonist reminisces about the war games he used to play with other kids in those very same woods, and compares them with sport activities at school: 

“Those war games were ace. Sport at school isn’t the same. Sport doesn’t let you be someone you’re not.” 

Current discourse around sport participation is almost entirely positive. The media often reports on Government strategies to get more young people involved in it. As I mentioned in a previous blog, one of the promised ‘legacies’ of hosting the Olympics is an increase in the number of youths taking up a sport. But are we certain this is always desirable and undeniably beneficial? And why do some people never get involved in sports, either as spectators or participants? 

Recently, there have been reports about a survey carried out by the Institute of Sport at Loughborough University for the Women’s Sport and Fitness Foundation (WSFF). The result was a report that showed that more that 51 per cent of (girl) respondents had been put off sport at school because of negative experiences during PE lessons. 45 per cent said sport at school was too competitive, whilst 48 per cent said that being sweaty was not feminine. 

So, blame it on excessive competitiveness, undesirable perspiration, or – as Harriet Walker, of The Independent newspapers, does – on incompetent, even sadistic, PE teachers, it is clear that competitive sport is not everyone’s cup of tea. And why should it? One thing that should be kept in mind is that enjoying sport (just viewing it or actually taking part) and enjoying being physically active are not the same thing. To return to Mitchell’s book, the young Jason clearly enjoyed being outdoors, moving about, and competing in the ‘war games’. And there was team work too, since –presumably – he had to work cooperatively with his fellow ‘soldiers’. It was not just the same as (competitive) school sport. 

The regimented nature of competitive sport, with its rituals, its temples, and tribal allegiances, is not for everyone. Many – not only girls – would love to be physically active; it’s sport they (we) don’t particularly care about. Can a compromise be found?

 

References 

Mitchell, D. (2006). Black Swan Green. London: Sceptre.

London reference collections shelfmark: Nov.2006/1443 

Mumford, S. (2012). Watching Sport: Aesthetics, Ethics and Emotion. London: Routledge.

London reference collections shelfmark: SPIS 796.01 MUM 12 

Perelman, M. (2012). Barbaric Sport: A Global Plague. London: Verso.

London reference collections shelfmark: SPIS 306.483 PER 12