Politics and Sports
Pierre De Couberton's ideas of revitalizing the Olympic games was for "sport", he visioned sports without the infliction of politics. Through the years the reality of his vision has died out and inevitably political issues and ideas began surfacing in the Olympic games just as much as they began appearing in the ordinary sports world. It seemed that the Olympic games got hit with most of the political back draft, mainly do to the large scale involvement of other countries and as such they became a podium for countries. In Martin Barry Vinokur's book "More Than a Game" he explains the involvement of politics and sports, he distinguishes two countries which have had incredible amounts of political resurgence through sports. It was my belief before reading this book that sports in America has always been effected somewhat by politics, but it came to a total surprise to hear that sports dictated politics and vise versa in other countries. In a world where some people believe sports take as much precedents as education, it seems no wonder that sports could not live without political issues. Vinokur takes Romania and East Germany and begins dissecting how politics have affected sports. One of the most startling facts to me was
In conclusion the book had it's ups and downs, though I would not recommend it to anyone unless they would like to understand the implication of politics on sport, mainly in Romania and East Germany. The book had startling facts and interesting ideas, but in short left me bored and sometimes confused. Vinokur does a good job putting together his ideas and facts, but in all honesty the book dwells to deep into the nicks and crannies of the countries. The Olympic games show it stronger then any other sporting event, the fact is that politics use sport as a platform for ideas and beliefs. No matter how little the implication, politics will use sport from now till the end of time. Vinokur throughout his book turns to education and how athletes are trained to show that sport has a political atmosphere. His belief which I support is that in short the governments have a say in how a athlete is trained from a young age, it is more so true for a communist country then a democratic one, but at both sides of the spectrum the government does have a say. This in turn results in athletes becoming more then average, it helps to weed out the "elite" athletes from the good ones. Vinokur's research on Romania and East Germany was interesting, his statistics were even more interesting. For example; "More than 5.5 million people regularly enjoy recreation in a country of 16.6 million. There are 255,000 sports instructors; 10, 414 sports clubs; 157,000 judges, umpires and referees; and 200,000 sports organizers in shop trade union groups in the GDR." The detailed statistic is mind blowing at first, namely the fact that just about a quarter of the population plays a mass sport at a r
Some common words found in the essay are:
East Germany, West West, Soviet Union, Barry Vinokur's, De Couberton's, Democratic RepublicGDR, olympic games, Afghanistan United, United IOC, east germany, sport political, soviet union, romania east, romania east germany, politics sport, Romania East, games soviet union, implication politics, sports world, political issues, political goals, implication politics sport,
Approximate Word count = 1136
Approximate Pages = 5 (250 words per page double spaced)
|
