Olympic Games

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• 8/22/2021
  

  Rule 50 and Racial Justice: The Long History of the IOC War on Athletes' Free Expression

  by Debbie Sharnak and Yannick Kluch

  "The recent rise of athlete activism brings the IOC’s claim that sports are a neutral space into direct conflict with athletes’ increasingly vocal demands for freedom of expression and the right to use their platform to advance human rights and social justice issues."

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• SOURCE: Made By History at the Washington Post
  8/2/2021
  

  Simone Biles is the Latest Olympian to Withhold Her Labor for Change

  by Johanna Mellis

  Simone Biles' decision not to compete in several gymnastic events is part of a legacy of athletes' refusal to compete dating back to Hungarian athletes' protests of Communist repression in 1956. 

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• SOURCE: Made By History at the Washington Post
  7/28/2021
  

  It's Impossible to Separate Politics and the Olympics

  by Michelle Sikes

  The Supreme Council for Sport in Africa was a collaboration of 32 nations to pressure international sporting authorities to seek to bar the white supremacist regimes of South Africa and Rhodesia from major competition, most notably through a boycott of the 1976 Montreal games. 

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• SOURCE: Made By History at the Washington Post
  7/23/2021
  

  The IOC May Not Like it, but the Games have Always Been a Forum for Protest

  by Harry Blutstein

  "Baron Pierre de Coubertin, believed that Olympiads were a way to communicate “love for concord and a respect for life.” So it was not surprising that activist athletes saw the Olympics as a legitimate forum to promote those values whenever they saw them violated."

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• SOURCE: Made By History at the Washington Post
  7/29/2021
  

  Simone Biles has Courageously Exposed the Blurred Line between Medicine and Abuse

  by Wendy Kline

  Simone Biles has worked to ensure that Dr. Larry Nasser's abuse of gymnasts under his care is not forgotten. This abuse was enabled by the authoritarian culture of both medicine and sports which keep women from exercising bodily autonomy. 

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• SOURCE: Made By History at the Washington Post
  7/27/2021
  

  How the Budding USA-France Basketball Rivalry Developed

  by Lindsay Sarah Krasnoff

  "Basketball diplomacy at the Olympics exposes the hidden ties that bind the United States and France together."

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• SOURCE: Smithsonian
  7/26/2021
  

  A History of Gymnastics from Ancient Greece to Tokyo 2020

  From classical civilization to Olga Korbut to Tokyo 2020, here’s what you need to know about gymnastics’ evolution over the past two millennia.

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• Amateurism, Sneaker Money, and the Forgotten Protest of the 1968 Games

  by Harry Blutstein

  Tommie Smith and John Carlos are remembered for their gloved-fist protest of American racism at the 1968 Mexico City Games. But they also demonstrated against the hypocritical and exploitative rules of amateurism and opened the door to endorsement payments for Olympians.

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• SOURCE: Perspectives on History
  7/21/2021
  

  Why Japan Forfeited Hosting the 1940 Games

  by Paul Droubie

  Japan's forfeiture of the games amid rising international and internal tensions shows that the Olympics have always been a vehicle for the promotion of national elites' agendas, often at the expense of popular domestic concerns. 

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• SOURCE: The New Republic
  7/12/2021
  

  Abolish the Olympics

  Natalie Shure argues that the Games impose too many costs on their host cities to justify a short-lived athletic spectacle. 

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• SOURCE: Washington Post
  1/13/2021
  

  ‘World’s Greatest Athlete’ Jim Thorpe Was Wronged by Bigotry. The IOC Must Correct the Record

  A fellow Olympic winner contends that the IOC must restore medals and recognition stripped from Jim Thorpe; his violation of amateurism rules was encouraged officials of the Carlisle Indian Industrial School and the American Olympic Committee who made the Native American athlete a fall guy. 

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• SOURCE: Texas Monthly
  11/4/2020
  

  Olympic Protester Tommie Smith Reclaims His Legacy in a New Documentary

  "There’s a lot of people out there who lived the history I lived way back then. That history is not gone, and it will never die."

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• SOURCE: Black Perspectives
  10/2/2020
  

  Remembering Wilma Rudolph, the “Queen of the Olympics”

  by Scott N. Brooks and Aram Goudsouzian

  "Maybe most important, Rudolph was a real Black woman, not a stereotype. The Olympics lent her a special platform at a unique moment in American history, and Rudolph capitalized upon it with grace."

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• SOURCE: TIME
  3/24/2020
  

  Have the Olympics Ever Been Canceled? Here's the History

  Since the first modern Olympic Games were held in 1896, only three have been abandoned.