A variety of viewpoints, in historical context, are presented in this anthology on the place of the Olympics as the leading international sport event from antiquity to pondering their future. This collection constitutes the most important academic and public policy issues affecting the Olympic Movement today. It should be required reading for anyone who wants to know about or bid for an Olympic Games. Part I presents seven articles devoted to Olympic history: the Games' legacy from antiquity, their modern evolution, and the most controversial Games of the modern era, the Berlin Games of 1936. Part II reviews the persistent problems and crises that confounded and defined the Olympic Games over time. The nine essays in this section focus on a variety of issues such as performance enhancement; the rise of commercialism; enduring controversies in the form of leadership, corruption, and the Cold War; and the politics of hosting Olympic Games. Finally, in Part III, the future of the Modern Olympic Movement is addressed from the perspective of the rapidly accelerating and mushrooming process of globalization.

In the world of sports, the most important component is the athlete. After all, without athletes there would be no sports. In ancient Greece, athletes were public figures, idolized and envied. This fascinating book draws on a broad range of ancient sources to explore the development of athletes in Greece from the archaic period to the Roman Empire. Whereas many previous books have focused on the origins of the Greek games themselves, or the events or locations where the games took place, this volume places a unique emphasis on the athletes themselves - and the fostering of their athleticism. Moving beyond stereotypes of larger-than-life heroes, Reyes BertolIn CebriAn examines the experiences of ordinary athletes, who practiced sports for educational, recreational, or professional purposes. According to BertolIn CebriAn, the majority of athletes in ancient times were young men and mostly single. Similar to today, most athletes practiced sport as part of their schooling. Yet during the fifth century B.C., a major shift in ancient Greek education took place, when the curriculum for training future leaders became more academic in orientation. As a result, argues BertolIn CebriAn, the practice of sport in the Hellenistic period lost its appeal to the intellectual elite, even as it remained popular with large sectors of the population. Thus, a gap emerged between the 'higher' and 'lower' cultures of sport. In looking at the implications of this development for athletes, whether high-performing or recreational, this erudite volume traverses such wide-ranging fields as history, literature, medicine, and sports psychology to recreate - in compelling detail - the life and lifestyle of the ancient Greek athlete.