Diagoras: International Academic Journal on Olympic Studies

Coubertinian Rhetoric: the Olympic Manifesto, a text with a modern edge

2024-04-24T14:44:00+00:00

Our article focuses on the work of Pierre de Coubertin, and in particular the Olympic Manifesto of 1892, with the aim of identifying and analyzing rhetorical strategies at the service of the Olympic ideal. We show how, thematically, the Baron’s texts are highly topical: humanist vision of sport, balance of body and mind, taste for effort, excellence...

Style serves the purpose. The terms are exact, the discourse clear. All these elements guarantee the credibility of the program. Baron de Coubertin uses images and comparisons to illustrate his point forcefully. He also uses analogies, to better represent what he’s describing.

Thematically, Coubertin contrasts physical activity, which keeps bodies virile and muscular, with the softening to which passivity and idleness lead.

The Baron’s contrast between intellectual training and physical education is also evident. Coubertin would refine this contrast by emphasizing the role of sport in shaping men’s minds and character. It’s a question of complementarity between body and mind, not dichotomy. In this connection, the Baron develops the concept of “eurythmie”, which in his writings takes on a very special meaning, that of a balance between two extremes.

The genesis of Association of the European National Olympic Committees (AENOC) in the 1960s

2024-04-24T14:53:38+00:00

At the turn of the 1960s, relations between the International Olympic Committee (IOC) and the National Olympic Committees (NOCs) were at the heart of debates and exchanges within the Olympic Movement. It was during this pivotal period that the NOCs wanted to play a greater part in the IOC’s Olympic activities, but also in spreading Olympism throughout their territories.

The desire to bring the NOCs together within an association was one of the solutions being considered. The European NOCs supported this initiative and launched the idea of an association of the NOCs of Europe, but this initiative very quickly ran into difficulties.

The Perception of Olympic Agenda 2020 Recommendations of College Student Athletes in Taiwan: A Cross-sectional Study on the Implementation of the Agenda in 2021

2024-04-24T15:00:15+00:00

This study is to carry out a survey through purposive sampling to understand how college student athletes in Taiwan who had at least participated in one sports event at a national level think about the Olympic Agenda 2020 after its implementation period. A total of 528 questionnaires were given out with 446 valid ones collected. The data were then analyzed through the methods of descriptive analysis, paired sample t-test, Pearson correlation analysis and importance-performance analysis (IPA).

This study found that five years after the adoption of the Agenda, athletes still value and follow the recommendations. It is crucial that the government sector and related sports associations should also take this into account. Consequently, it proved that the recommendations were developing in a positive direction. When applying IPA, none of the recommendations was in the second quadrant. This finding contrasted with the outcome in 2018 when many of the recommendations were located in quadrant B. Overall, this study demonstrated that some significant progress was made in how athletes perceive the strategic roadmap, and that the efforts made by the government sector and relevant authorities were successful.

Toward the integration of esports into the Olympic Movement: retrospective and prospective analysis.

2024-04-24T15:06:29+00:00

While International Olympic Committee’s (IOC) president Thomas Bach recently asked the new IOC Esports Commission to study the creation of Olympic Esports Games, no research provides an empirical analysis of the rationale behind the IOC’ esports strategy. This study aims to fill this gap by highlighting how the IOC could plan the maintenance and evolution of its esports strategy for future Olympic esports events such as the Olympic Esports Games. A focus group of Vietnamese Generation Z esports fans forms the main data used for this research. The results provide both a retrospective and a prospective analysis of IOC’ esports strategy. The findings suggest that IOC’ esports commission decision-makers should try to find a balance between popular and sustainable esports scenes when choosing titles for the future Olympic Esports Games. The latter event further appears to be a strategic opportunity for the IOC to partner with major esports titles while previous initiatives such as the Olympic Virtual Series (OVS) and the Olympic Esports Series (OES) rely on physical and non-physical virtual sports.

30 minutes physical activity a day! Daily Sustainable Health Olympics to combat sedentary behaviour

2024-04-24T15:26:02+00:00

The major national concern of Paris 2024: “Move for 30 minutes every day!” This is an up-to-date reflection of the sports & health political construct.

A veritable mishmash of the confusion among elected representatives and their wide-ranging actions: 30 minutes of daily PA at primary school; two additional hours of sport per week at secondary school; reform of the Sports Pass; reconciliation of body and mind; encouragement of the practice to least active audiences; support funds from the Agence Nationale du Sport.

The lexical articulation of sports & health is unique in the world and provides a political lens for redefining sport, as demonstrated in March 2023 by the INJEP surveys and the growth of sport on prescription to combat the sedentary lifestyle.

The Paris 2024 official symbols and their roles in hosting “Revolutionary Games”

2024-04-24T15:30:15+00:00

This article focuses on the Paris 2024 official symbols: the logo, the slogan and the mascots. The symbols will be presented in the order of appearance they were unveiled to the public, focusing each time on their significations and roles in the Paris 2024 Games’ wishes to host Revolutionary Games. The article covers the process of revealing these symbols to the world, along with their reception and the criticisms they faced, in particular the logo and the mascots. The work will be completed by remarks of the Paris 2024 brand director, Julie Matikhine.

Preface

2024-04-24T15:41:07+00:00

Preface of Diagoras, International Academic Journal on Olympic Studies Vol.7 2023

Listening to the Locals, Promoting His Presidential Agenda: Lord Killanin’s 1973 Latin American Tour

2024-04-24T15:33:50+00:00

In 1972, Lord Killanin succeeded Avery Brundage as president of the International Olympic Committee (IOC). Early in his tenure as IOC president, Killanin received an invitation to attend the twelfth congress of the Pan-American Sports Organization to be held in Santiago, Chile in late May 1973. He embraced the opportunity and transformed the trip to Chile into a tour that included several Latin American countries. This article traces Killanin’s Latin American tour, touching upon the major developments of each stopover, including accomplishments and complications, and their significance. In doing so, this article shows that by heeding the concerns, successes, and projects of those in charge of regional Olympic and sport bureaucracies, Killanin gained a thorough understanding, and formed an opinion, of the organization as well as the state of Olympic and sport matters in the region. At the same time, this article also demonstrates that Killanin took advantage of the journey throughout Latin America to consolidate and enlarge his network of contacts in the region and to familiarize regional Olympic, sport, and political leaders, and the general public, with his vision for the Olympic Movement.

The Effect of the International Olympic Academy’s Olympic Studies on Postgraduate Students’ Work.

2024-04-24T15:39:08+00:00

When Pierre de Coubertin introduced the modern Olympic Games, one of the central ideals underpinning the revival of the Games was education. As an established educational and cultural institution of the International Olympic Committee (IOC), the International Olympic Academy (IOA) has been providing forums for education and research for 60 years. The aim of this study is to explore the educational aims of the IOA’s International Seminars, and the effect of the seminar on postgraduates’ subsequent work. The case study design used in this research permitted a deep examination of participants from a single country. Australia was chosen due to its long-standing association with the modern Games and the historical connection of the researchers’ University with the IOA. Data were generated via IOA-related documents and semi structured interviews with past participants, and were subsequently thematically analysed. Key findings included the characterisation of the IOA as an inspirational place for participants to continue to critique, extend or implement Olympic aspects in their work. Further, participants’ work, or certain aspects of it, seemed to have been directly and/or indirectly impacted by notions of Olympism, Olympics or the Olympic Movement, due to their IOA experiences.