Just how competitive are women athletes? I ask this because it’s one of those questions which inexplicably seems to have puzzled psychologists, sociologists and educators for years. It’s also a loaded question because how we define competitiveness and how appropriate we consider it for different types of people continually undergoes change – the debate about whether children should be encouraged to compete against each other is one example; the issue of how women perceive and approach their goals is another. Early research in this area was predicated on stereotypes about gender roles and suggested that competitiveness was a ‘masculine’ trait, so female athletes (who were found in tests to be more competitive than female non-athletes, as well as possessing other traits traditionally considered to be ‘masculine’) felt a certain ambivalence about the findings. Later research avoided those labels, and investigations using a measure known as SOQ (Sport Orientation Questionnaire) now suggest that the answer is a lot more complex than previously supposed. Using SOQ, men tend to score higher than women on ‘competitiveness’ and ‘win orientation’ and women score as highly as men on ‘goal orientation’ – which I interpret to mean that women want to win, but aim to achieve their ends in a less ‘aggressive’ manner. What does this actually mean in practice though? Watching men & women compete at the Olympic Games, one can’t perceive any difference in the determination with which they prepare for and perform their events. So do women somehow train and compete less ‘competitively’, or more ‘cooperatively’, or less ‘aggressively’, or more ‘ambivalently’; or what?  Maybe the issue doesn’t arise with elite sportswomen; they’re determined to win and that’s that. But ideas about what attributes it is appropriate to display, might conceivably deter some women from taking up sport at all.

 

There was certainly something of a stigma attached to the notion of competitiveness in women’s sport, in the early years at least. The American educator Lucille E Hill writing about college women’s sport in 1903, was a pioneering advocate for women’s participation in all kinds of strenuous activities and edited a collection of essays about women’s sport in her ‘Athletics & out-door sports for women’. However, some of her contributors struck a note of caution: Herbert Holton of the Boston Athletic Association, who wrote the ‘Running’ chapter in her book, warned his female readers against striving for speed and records lest their “thought and manner…become manly; and grace, that natural condition for which woman stands, be lost in an effort not naturally a woman’s”. Christine Herrick on ‘Track athletics’ ends her piece with a quotation: “Women have a different object in athletics from men. Health is ours, moderate effort bringing pleasure with it, but competition is secondary”.

 

 These were the days, of course, when international sporting competitions for women were limited. That isn’t the case now, and there are huge rewards for athletic success; so no one gets anywhere in sport today without ambition and a strong streak of competitiveness. In fact, does anyone know a successful athlete who hasn’t possessed these attributes? Answers on a postcard...

 Gill, Diane L., Psychological dynamics of sport and exercise.

Leeds : Human Kinetics, 2008.

London reference collections shelfmark: SPIS796.01

Lending collections shelfmark: m08/.38026

 

Hill. Lucille E Athletics and out-door sports for women, each subject being separately treated by a special writer…

New York: Macmillan, 1903

London reference collections shelfmark: 7912.h.15

 

 

I’m much interested at the moment in the Special Olympics, and how this organisation fits into the Olympic movement more generally. For those not in the know, the Special Olympics gives people with intellectual disabilities the opportunity for athletic competition, and it was founded by Eunice Kennedy Shriver, the sister of Robert Kennedy and JFK, and also of a mentally disabled sibling: Rosemary. The movement – which she founded in the 1960s - is now world wide, covering some 180 countries and 3.1 million athletes, aided by 300,000 coaches and 750,000 volunteers. The organisation holds world, regional and national sports competitions and oversees a network of national programmes, the aim being to encourage people with intellectual disabilities to improve their health, and gain confidence and skills through sport. The volunteer programme, and the policy of encouraging the athletes' families to get involved as well, serves to broaden the movement’s appeal still further, and the publicity generated will hopefully lead to a raised awareness more generally about the abilities and rights of this community.

The IOC officially recognised the organisation in 1988 and Special Olympics is actually the only body authorised by it to use the word "Olympics" worldwide - no mean achievement by any standards!

For some people, sport appears trivial; something to be avoided on the back pages of newspapers. But as a tool for social inclusion and personal realisation it seems to work almost better than anything else. I blogged a few weeks back about how the UN is putting faith in sport as a development tool, and here’s another example of its power.

There aren’t a huge number of books about the Special Olympics in the collection (though there are doubtless some articles in journals that I haven’t tracked down yet). Here’s hoping that much more is written about this fascinating subject. 

 http://www.specialolympics.org/

 Siperstein, Gary N. Multinational study of attitudes towards individuals with intellectual disabilities: general findings and calls to action Washington, D.C. : Special Olympics, 2003.

Lending collections shelfmark: m07/.29379

Haskins, James, A new kind of joy: the story of the Special Olympics. Garden City, N.Y: Doubleday, 1976.

Lending collections shelfmark: X28/5724

Brittain, Ian. ‘The Special Olympics, intellectual disability and the Paralympic Games’ in The Paralympic Games explained. London: Routledge, 2010.

London reference collections shelfmark: SPIS 796.0456

Lending collections shelfmark: m09/.30402

Bartlett, Graham. The Special Olympics. Leicestershire Adult Basic Education Service, [1991?]

London reference collections shelfmark: YK.1992.a.9437

  

An interesting talk was given last week by the curator of the BL’s philatelic collection David Beech, in which he talked about ‘philately’ as opposed to ‘stamp collecting’; the point being that postage stamps and other postal artefacts can be seen as a research resource providing a fruitful source of information about the times and circumstances in which they were issued. The BL has a large and extremely valuable collection of philatelic items http://bit.ly/cR7u6R, second only to the collection of HM the Queen. There are some 8 million items in all, and there are numerous examples of stamps featuring sport and sporting events; and most particularly the Olympic Games.

Some are wonderfully colourful like the Stockholm Games stamp of 1912:

 

Some are of great historical interest, such as the 1936 Berlin Olympics stamp which shows a runner with an Olympic torch (1936 being the first time the use of a torch was introduced into the Games):

 

 Another set of stamps are real curiosities in that they depict a Games which never actually took place - the Berlin Olympics of 1916 which was prevented by the First World War:

 

The IOC has always taken a great interest in the stamps produced to commemorate the Olympics, and has a web page devoted to these and other memorabilia http://bit.ly/9oA8tb. It tells us that the issuing and sale of special stamps in 1895 made it possible for the Organising Committee to balance its Athens Olympics budget and construct the last four venues for the events themselves. As the IOC describes it:

Those Olympic stamps were the first sports stamps, the father of them all. Today, for each Olympic Games, the host nation’s postal administration has an extensive stamp and philatelic programme, and nations participating at the Olympic Games are encouraged to issue a set of stamps. Typically, about 100 nations issue Olympic stamps for the Olympic Summer Games, and about 40 nations issue stamps for the Olympic Winter Games.

Collectors of such stamps have formed a global association called the International Federation of Olympic Philatelists (FIPO) which caters specifically for devotees of this sort of material and who eagerly await the issue of stamps for the winter and summer Olympic Games.

Sunday was the day of the Royal Parks half marathon and saw Yours Truly progressing in not quite stately fashion round the beautiful course, which takes in numerous London monuments and green vistas. Half way round I was glumly contemplating the impossibility of managing a full marathon next year, and this led inevitably to admiring thoughts about athletes capable of running over 26 miles in  close to two hours. There is no half marathon event in the Olympic Games, but the full marathon has more than made up for this as far as human interest, and controversy is concerned. Everyone remembers the 1908 event when Dorando Pietri was helped over the finishing line and then disqualified, but there are numerous other incidents involving the race since then such as the debate about the exact distance to be run (this changed several times in the early years of the modern Olympic Games); the arguments about the right of women to do this distance (women were finally able to compete in 1984); and currently the fuss surrounding the change of route for London 2012. The revised route now starts in the Mall and goes past all the principal London landmarks such as the Houses of Parliament and Buckingham Palace instead of taking in parts of Tower Hamlets - to the dismay of the inhabitants of that Olympic borough.

Of course, when the Olympic marathon was first run in 1896 the extraordinariness of the event was felt by everyone. It seemed an impossible distance, accessible only to incredibly gifted athletes. Now of course, the bloke next door does it, dressed as a gorilla, so one wonders if it’s time to incorporate in the Olympic Games the next stage in endurance running – the Ultramarathon - which can stretch to 100 miles or more. I wonder what route would be decided for this if it took place in 2012?

Below are some interesting contemporary publications from the collections, about the Olympic marathon of 1908 (including a piece of music celebrating Dorando). To which is added what looks like an intriguing forerunner of the London marathon, the ‘Evening news marathon race’

Souvenir of the marathon race from Windsor Castle to the stadium Sheperd's [sic] Bush. Saturday October 10th, 1908. ...

[London]: Printed and published by Mrs. S. Burgess, 14, Artillery Lane, Bishopsgate, London, E.C., [1908].

London reference collections shelfmark:   74/1899.b.10.(16).

The 1908 Olympic Games, the great stadium and the marathon : a pictorial record  [compiled by] Bob Wilcock.

London: Society of Olympic Collectors, 2008.

London reference collections shelfmark:YK.2009.a.33961

Saitta, Lillo.

Dorando. - The Hero of the Marathon Race. - Grand March. [P. F.]

London : J. E. Dallas & Sons, [1908]

London reference collections shelfmark: g.605.zz.(5.)

Imperial International Exhibition, 1908 (LONDON)

The Great Stadium Programme. (Programme of the Evening News Marathon Race ... May 22nd, 1909.).

Bemrose & Sons: London, 1909.

London reference collections shelfmark 7915.bb.5.(3.)

 

 

Manchester – looking its best in bright sunlight – was the setting on Monday for the conference ‘Will citizen media take over the Olympic Games?’ organised by Andy Miah, Professor in Ethics and Emerging Technologies at the University of the West of Scotland. The conference attracted people from all over the world, many with experience of reporting on sporting mega events from a citizen journalist perspective. Ruth Mackenzie – the Director of the Cultural Olympiad - was there, as were academics, journalists, and providers of social media platforms.

 What came across very strongly was the vitality and excitement generated by social media and the opportunities it offers to citizen journalists, as well as keen anticipation of the different perspectives that this would bring to the London 2012 games. It was also rather overwhelming for someone like me, who was there – as usual - to plug the archiving aspect of all this. Hearing tell of all the projects already under way brought on a bit of a panic attack. What was going to happen to all this marvellous stuff when the games were over? Had people thought about the issues involved in archiving it for future research use, or would it all just disappear? Gulp!

 Citizen journalism has the power to be inclusive, to promote ownership of events, to shine a light on viewpoints that contribute to a holistic view of what’s happening in the world. It’s also immediate, unmediated, and spontaneous: the wildcard - if you like – in the London 2012 media pack. It has already taken giant strides both technologically and organisationally. However, have we really got to grips with capturing it for the long term; with its legacy in other words ? Yes, here I go again!

 We hope to look much more closely at citizen media on the Olympics website and get some contributions from the movers and shakers. In the meantime catch some of the fascinating presentations on the twitter feed for the event at:

http://twitter.com/search?q=%23media2012

 References from the BL collections

 Citizen journalism: global perspectives edited by Stuart Allan & Einar Thorsen. New York; Oxford: Peter Lang, 2009

Lending collections shelf mark: m09/.26103

 Gant, Scott E. We're all journalists now: the transformation of the press and reshaping of the law in the Internet age New York; London: Free Press, 2007

Lending collections shelf mark: m07/.29818

 Public journalism 2.0: the promise and reality of a citizen-engaged press edited by Jack Rosenberry & Burton St John III London: Routledge, 2010

London reference collections shelfmark: YK.2010.a.10966

 Web journalism: a new form of citizenship? edited by Sean Tunney & Garrett Monaghan Brighton: Sussex Academic, 2010

London reference collections shelfmark: SPIS302.23

 

 

 

 

Andrea Cunsolo writes:

 That Paralympic Show is part of Channel 4’s drive to promote the London 2012 Paralympic Games. It’s a ten week magazine series hosted by T4’s Rick Edwards and wheelchair basketball Paralympic medallist and presenter, Ade Adepitan. The show is filmed on different locations every week, exploring both the athletes’ training grounds and their particular sport, with presenters Rick and Ade often being joined by celebrities who are given the chance to compete in Paralympic themed games, challenges which include taking part in events such as Paralympic sailing, rowing and wheelchair tennis.

The show has a radical stance compared to the more conventional one used by past broadcasters, and sends out a clear message to viewers. Why the Paralympics has hitherto failed to capture the nation’s imagination is a question for debate, but it is worth noting that in this show the producers have focussed not on the athletes’ disabilities but on their dedication, skills and will to win, and this may be what is needed to capture the public’s imagination. It seems likely that the series will turn Paralympics gold medal winners, David Weir, Lee Pearson and Sarah Storey into household names, an achievement only managed so far by South African ‘blade runner’, Oscar Pistorius and our own Dame Tanni Grey-Thompson.

Watch That Paralympic Show as well for information on the technological breakthroughs being made in disability sport: Paralympian Jody Cundy tests his paracycling skills to the maximum by visiting a wind tunnel to see just how fast he is with a carbon fibre race leg and race bike compared to a race bike and prosthetic leg from the 1920s; Oscar Pistorius is interviewed about his ambition to compete at the Olympic Games using his radical new prosthesis.

 This last raises a controversial issue: where do we draw the line that determines whether or not a ‘Paralympic’ athlete can compete with an ‘Olympic’ one? In the mean time, I encourage people to sample Channel 4’s Paralympics broadcasting. It displays a pure, exciting and elite form of athletics.

 

 

Sarah Evans writes:

 

We're really delighted to receive a new contribution to the website by Dr. Jean Williams who is a Senior Research Fellow at De Monfort University. She examines a subject which is close to our hearts at the BL -the relationship of British sportswomen to the Olympic Games (since the first modern Games in 1896). With so many women succeeding in the Games it is sometimes easy to forget that women's participation and success has not always been supported by the culture and organisation of the Games. Throughout the twentieth century a great number of women competitors have struggled to gain access to the Games and to be recognised as serious athletes. Dr. Williams has made a really lively case for a comprehensive history of these women.

 

I was particularly interested to read some the stories of women competitors which showed the relationship between gender, social class and the Games. Jean describes how the idea of 'gentlemanly amateurism' which significantly influenced the Games for the best part of the twentieth century is shown to have really affected who was able to be a competitor and who was not. Not getting paid for something which requires a considerable personal investment made participation difficult for many working-class people, not least women who also had to contend with concerns that sport would undo their femininity!

 

It was great to read about how, despite these unfavourable circumstances, there are examples of working-class women athletes who have achieved great success during earlier Games. I was particularly inspired by the story of Dorothy Hyman a sprinter who won Sports Personality of the Year in 1963. Jean describes how Hyman came from a coal-mining background and was one of five children. She trained at a stadium 8 miles away from her house and had to wash at a neighbour's house after training as her family home had no indoor bathroom. Hyman resisted the amateur principles imposed by men with money - and for good reason.

 

Please do feel free to download Dr. Williams' article and to post your comments and relevant links on this blog. It can be found here: http://bit.ly/98pHoS. We really hope that the article will inspire others to take a deeper look at the history of women Olympians.

 

Other useful links: http://bit.ly/advYFV

 

Sports memorabilia is big business, and Olympics memorabilia no less so; you only have to look on the internet to see the vast amount of historic items on sale, from badges and special stamp issues to events programmes. Not so long ago, a new shopping opportunity opened up in St Pancras station in the form of a London 2012 merchandise outlet. The station is right next door to the BL so this seemed like a good opportunity to combine business with pleasure and take a stroll over there to check it all out.

 

People keen to acquire a 2012 heirloom will be very interested in what’s on offer. There are cuddly Wenlocks and Mandevilles, lapel pins and key rings, sports clothes, mugs, posters etc etc. So if you’re one of those people psychologically equipped to defer gratification you can buy something and put it away until it becomes a rare and prized object. The IOC has a commission which oversees the merchandising of Olympics memorabilia http://bit.ly/9oA8tb and reveals that the collecting of Olympic mementoes started as early as the first modern Olympics in 1896.

 

There’s something about ephemera and keepsakes which arouses everyone’s interest. Old department store catalogues, knitting patterns, advertisements, posters - things like these - some of which in their serendipitous ways have found a place in the BL collections - are much prized, and the fascination of the quotidian is one of the reasons why the newspaper library collection with its daily, weekly and fortnightly publications, replete with their small ads, correspondence pages and illustrations, are so much used. It’s like getting into a time machine.

 

Here’s the cover of an Olympics souvenir issue of the Athletics review of 1948

 

 
BLreference collections shelfmark 7917.d.38

 

The BL has quite a few artefacts which it mostly acquired as part of larger collections, but we have more than enough to do with actual publications, so don’t actively collect individual objects. But you never know what might end up in a library collection. The National Library of Australia has a commemorative carpet from the 1956 Melbourne Games, and it published an interesting plan of action for the Sydney 2000 Olympic Games which embraced the collecting of all kinds of materials, and which you can read online. http://bit.ly/cpN5GV