When (or how) do the Olympics become ‘stale’?

Abstract

This paper presents a discussion about the ongoing search for seemingly faddish new events in the Olympic programme, such as golf, rugby, and BMX cycling, which may be intended to liven up the Olympic Games to maintain public appeal. Whilst programme space may be a logistical concern, there is also an aesthetic debate over how the avant-garde in sporting events may take precedence over the classic, more established events with which we are familiar. Consequently, a number of questions are posed in this paper which explores the aesthetic and commercial implications of Olympic taste through the selection and rejection of Olympic events. The paper concludes that the current popularity of the Olympic Games may hang upon a frail sequence of dependencies: an overburdening commercial interest resting upon an ill-defined aesthetic purpose or identity.

Notes

^1.International Olympic Committee, ‘The Sports on the Olympic Programme’.

^2. In a dynamic situation, a number of sports, wrestling, modern pentathlon, and taekwondo among them, compete for one place in the Olympic programme. Media report: Magnay, ‘Wrestling, Modern Pentathlon and Taekwondo’.

^3. Olympic Wrestling remains in 2020 and 2024 Summer Games. Hersh, ‘Wrestling Pins Opponents’.

^4. Media reports highlighted the controversies around selection of sports for inclusion on the Olympic programme. See, for instance, Geoghegan, ‘What Makes a Good Olympic Sport?’; Kaerup, ‘Two New Olympic Sports’; The Independent, ‘Olympics – Golf and Rugby’.

^5. Reaffirming traditional values of the Olympic spectacle. International Olympic Committee, ‘The Olympic Movement in Society’.

^6. Sporting event programmers apply equally to television programmers and event planners of a host-city organizing committee.

^7.Nixon, ‘Cricket in the Olympics’, discusses the crowded calendar of the Olympics.

^8.Beijing Organizing Committee, ‘Official Website’.

^9.Rendell, The Olympics.

^10.Beijing Organizing Committee, ‘Official Website’.

^11.Kenyon and Palmer, ‘Funding and Sponsorship’, discuss some implications of sponsorship and commercial interest in the Olympic Games and London 2012 in particular.

^12.Inizan, ‘The Ancient Olympic Games’.

^13.Coote, Olympic Report ’76. At one time, Montreal was one of the most controversial Games in modern Olympic history because of boycotts, building problems, and spiralling costs.

^14. One attempt to examine the aesthetics of management is Höpfl, ‘Aesthetics and Management’.

^15.Palmer, The Sporting Image, focuses on the moral behaviour of Olympians for acting beyond the call of duty outside the immediate remit of sport. Moral actions are celebrated through art and literature as an engaging means to an Olympic education.

^16.Mallon, ‘The Olympic Bribery Scandal’. Recent statements from Dick Pound show that cycling may be under threat as an Olympic event following revelations by Lance Armstrong about cheating at an institutional level. The IOC requested that the International Cycling Union prove that it [the UCI] has not been complicit in cheating. Cycling News, ‘Pound Says IOC May Drop Cycling’.

^17.Coote, History of the Olympics; Rendell, The Olympics; Wood, ‘List of Discontinued Olympic Sports’.

^18.Hampton, The Austerity Olympics; Wassong, Lennartz and Zawadzki, ‘Olympic Art Contests’.

^19.Finley and Pleket, The Olympic Games.

^20. Olympic ideal communicated by Coubertin in 1904 in the French newspaper Le Figaro, cited in Wassong, Lennartz and Zawadzki, ‘Olympic Art Contests’.

^21.Gracyk, ‘Having Bad Taste’.

^22.Hart-Davis, The Letters of Oscar Wilde.

^23.Sparshott, The Structure of Aesthetics; Newton, The Meaning of Beauty.

^24.Newton, The Meaning of Beauty.

^25.Meah and Garcia, The Olympics, chap. 5: ‘Ethics and Values’.

^26.International Olympic Committee, ‘Ethics’.

^27. If there is poor aesthetic reasoning for maintaining the presence of a sport, such as athletics and swimming in the Olympic programme, no matter how established it may appear currently, the sport may have a weak claim for inclusion in the future. For example, when wooden ships were the popular norm, it seemed absurd to build them out of iron. But history shows how rapidly attitudes changed on this ‘obvious’ issue, leaving wooden ships and their iconic designs behind – and with them the overwhelmingly accepted aesthetic concept of what a ship may be.

^28.Wood, ‘List of Discontinued Olympic Sports’.

^29. For pre-2002 examples, see Jennings, The New Lords of the Rings; JenningsThe Great Olympic Swindle. For historical coverage of the Salt Lake City scandal, see Wenn, Barney and Martyn, Tarnished Rings.

^30. Media report: Magnay, ‘Wrestling, Modern Pentathlon and Taekwondo’. Sports may be cut based upon their popularity ratings.

^31.Ryle, The Concept of Mind, 17–8.

^32.Kang and Stotlar, ‘An Investigation of Factors’.

^33.Chalip and McDaniel, ‘Effects of Commercialism’; Lee, Sandler and Shani, ‘Attitudinal Constructs towards Sponsorship’.

^34.Giannoulakis, Stotlar and Chatziefstathiou, ‘Olympic Sponsorship’.

^35.Jackson, ‘The 2011 Rugby World Cup’.

^36.Beer ‘How to Brand Crash’.

^37.Kang and Stotlar, ‘An Investigation of Factors’.

^38.Czula, ‘Pierre de Coubertin’; Callebat, ‘The Modern Olympic Games’; Weiler, ‘The Predecessors’.

^39.Crowther, ‘The State of the Modern Olympics’.

^40. See Adams and Larson, ‘Hey Pal! Who Won the Marathon?’ for a brief summary of press coverage of the 1908 Games in London.

^41.Unger, ‘Business of the Games’.

^42.US Lacrosse, ‘Men's International Lacrosse History’, discusses how this traditional game had Olympic status as a medal event and then became demoted to a demonstration sport. The rationale for this in Olympic aesthetic terms is unclear and could be better justified.

^43.Nixon, ‘A Case for a Split in Cricket’, discusses the pros and cons of cricket in the Olympics and implies that Olympic rules are too weak to accommodate cricket and that the already crowded calendar would be detrimental to quality play.

^44.Wood, ‘List of Discontinued Olympic Sports’.

^45.Olympic Programme Commission, ‘Evaluation Criteria for Sports’, evaluates sports fitness against a business plan or model, rather than explaining aesthetic criteria for discrimination on grounds of appearance and appeal towards an Olympic aesthetic.

^46.Sullivan, ‘Progress Overshadowed by Scandals’; Mackay and Chaudhary, ‘Bribes Scandal’; BBC News, ‘World Timeline’; Mallon, ‘The Olympic Bribery Scandal’; HaynesSocio-Economic Impact.

^47.Coca-Cola, ‘Corporation Annual Review 2011’, 34.

^48.McDonald's ‘McDonald's Annual Report 2011’, 9.