The Impact of the 2012 Olympic and Paralympic Games

Diminishing Contrasts, Increasing Varieties

K. Dixon, T. Gibbons, K. Dixon, T. Gibbons

• Publisher: Palgrave Pivot
• Year: 2014
• Print ISBN: 9781349487592, 9781137405074
• eBook ISBN: 9781137405081
• Topic: Social Sciences
• Subtopic: Gender Studies
• Index: Social Sciences

The London 2012 Olympics and Paralympics were seen as a success and the hosts were praised for the promotion of equality, tolerance and unity as well as inspiring a legacy to continue these values. This volume contains a collection of sociological case studies which critically assess the diverse impacts of London 2012 and its key controversies.

1

Introduction

Kevin Dixon and Tom Gibbons

Abstract: In this introductory chapter, the authors briefly summarize the origins of the enduring, yet overly positive rhetoric associated with the Olympic and Paralympic Games. They argue that the five distinct case studies of the London 2012 Games that make up this book each underline, in varied ways, the juxtaposition between the assumed homogeneity, equality, tolerance and unity associated with London 2012 and some key controversies that emerged before, during and after the spectacle of the Games which, instead, illustrate the many inequalities and divisions that were also apparent. Finally, the structure and organization of the book are outlined.

Dixon, Kevin and Tom Gibbons, eds. The Impact of the 2012 Olympic and Paralympic Games: Diminishing Contrasts, Increasing Varieties. Basingstoke: Palgrave Macmillan, 2015. DOI: 10.1057/9781137405081.0004.

Introduction

Given the global nature of the Olympic and Paralympic Games movements, it is unsurprising to find a plethora of books dedicated to examining them. Over the last ten years, there have been a number of books seeking to provide a historical analysis of previous Olympiads (with far less emphasis on the Paralympics) focusing predominately on issues of nationalism, politics, and commercialization (cf. Close, Askew and Xin 2007; Bale and Christensen 2004; Longmore 2011; Majumdar and Collins 2008; Young and Walmsley 2005). There have also been texts that relate more specifically to Britain’s Olympic heritage (cf. Menary 2010; Polley 2011). The main previous texts that have focused solely on London 2012 are from Girginov’s edited Handbook of the London 2012 Olympic and Paralympic Games which is published in two volumes – Volume One: Making the Games (2013) and Volume Two: Celebrating the Games (2014).¹

This book adds to the existing literature by providing a selection of specific and original sociological research studies on various aspects of the London 2012 Olympic and Paralympic Games. The book negotiates four empirically based chapters relating to the juxtaposition between the assumed homogeneity, equality, tolerance and unity associated with London 2012 and some key controversies that emerged before, during and after the spectacle of the Games which, instead, illustrate the many inequalities and divisions that were also apparent. Consequently, this book engages with a recurring issue that is expressed in varied contexts throughout chapter contributions and is brought together in Chapter 6 with the use of the theoretically loaded phrase “diminishing contrasts, increasing varieties”. We will briefly return to justifying the use of this theoretical position later in this chapter.

First, however, we aim to contextualize and briefly acknowledge the origins of the idealistic, and yet, commonly held discursive framework that so often stands in contrast to or even denies the possibility of the Olympic and Paralympic Games having any negative heterogeneous impacts associated with them. This framework, we argue, is based on the standards and enduring rhetoric associated with sport in nineteenth century Europe, and Victorian Britain in particular. Moreover, we suggest that whilst the dominant belief in sport as unequivocally and inherently good for all in society is desirable at heart, in essence it is illusory. To make this argument, in what follows, we briefly summarize the origins of this underpinning philosophy with particular reference to the development of the Modern Olympic Games. Thereafter, we discuss the controversies that proponents of this position face when confronted with the reality of the heterogeneous impacts of the Olympic and Paralympic Games – some being positive and others more negative.

Development of the Modern Olympics and the creation of an inherently positive sporting ideology

Maguire (1993) states that the English notion of “fair play”, which was imbued in modern sporting forms by the English public schools leading to their codification, was an ethos that was effectively diffused to continental Europe (and throughout the formal and informal areas of the British Empire) from the end of the nineteenth century. Nowhere is this demonstrated more clearly than in the inception of the Modern Olympic Games by the Frenchman, Baron Pierre de Coubertin, who founded the International Olympic Committee (IOC) in 1890 and birthed the inaugural and global Olympic Games competition in Athens in 1896, a competition still held on a quadrennial basis which has increased in global scale ever since.

However, 46 years prior to the inauguration of the first modern and truly international Olympic Games, a small local sport competition set the standard for what was to follow. It was not in London, but rather in rural Shropshire that the seed was sown for an international Games influenced in no small way by the philosophy of Dr William Penny Brookes, general practitioner, magistrate, and founder of the Much Wenlock Olympian Games in 1850 (Beale 2011). With unity and community spirit at its heart, the Games were established to “promote the moral, physical and intellectual improvement of the inhabitants of the Town and neighborhood of Wenlock” (Sandbrook 2012). Brookes, no doubt, inspired by the legend of Robert Dover and the Cotswold Olimpick Games that were established centuries before (as a celebration of the alcohol-fuelled rough play of late sixteenth and early seventeenth century Britain), created a Games that typified the emerging philosophy of the new industrial age that would showcase the potential for rational sport competition.

Holding for the first time the characteristics of modern sport as expressed by Guttmann (1979), the Much Wenlock Olympian Games was staged annually as a celebration of Victorian pragmatism. In this vein the events were strictly regulated, for instance, “foot races were organized in age groups. Leaping events were decided by finite measurements and team games were to be played to the ethos of the public schools” (Polley 2011, p. 41). Moreover, whilst the events (including cricket, football, foot racing, and leaping for height and distance) were subsidized with monetary prizes, the Wenlock Olympian Society ensured that participants understood that they were engaged, not merely in sports but also in self and community improvement (Beale 2011; Polley 2011).

In addition to the Games at Much Wenlock, Brookes endeavoured to expand this sporting contest to the national level. This was achieved when Brookes met co-founder of the Liverpool Olympic Festivals, John Hulley (and other interested parties), at the Liverpool Gymnasium to form the world’s first National Olympian Association (NOA) in 1865.² The NOA was unique, not only because of its rational configuration but also because it presided over the first national multi-sport event that attempted to bring different modern sporting disciplines together for competition, the “National Olympian Games”. Additionally, it was the first sporting body in Britain to lobby for towns and cities to host and financially support an annual Games event (Polley 2011, p. 66).

It should be noted that Brookes’ British Games was inspired by an Olympic movement that was occurring simultaneously in Greece (Young 1998), and in 1880, Brookes made the first proposal for an international Olympics, pursuing this idea in print and through diplomatic channels. His aim was to start the International Olympic Games in Athens, however, this proposal was ultimately unsuccessful (Young 1996, p. 62). In 1890, French aristocrat Baron Pierre de Coubertin was invited to Much Wenlock where Brookes held a special Shropshire Olympics in his honour. He was inspired by the Games and in 1891 he was made an honorary member of the Wenlock Olympian Society. Brookes and de Coubertin shared a vision for the future of sport and its role for shaping communities and common virtues for social good.

But de Coubertin’s inspiration was not completely shaped by the sport tournament at Wenlock. This, after all, was a product of a larger rational recreational movement that was occurring throughout Britain (Holt 1989). To contextualize, rational recreation was a social movement designed to encourage mass participation in functional activities that were thought to be beneficial to a modern industrial society whilst remaining far removed from those unruly and functionally obsolete “mob” pastimes of earlier centuries (Cunningham 1980; Elias and Dunning 1986). Gruneau (1993, p. 89) summarizes this process in the following way:

The challenge to those who wanted to make sport into something new in the nineteenth century, something modern, can thus be summarized as a series of daunting questions and problems: How could traditional folk games and sports be remade and given both moral and economic utility as orderly, healthy and socially improving practices? How could sport be organized to make a claim to culture versus barbarism? If people wanted sporting spectacle, was it not better to give it to them in a nonthreatening, socially positive way, than to allow sport to develop completely unregulated? The pursuit of answers to these questions was never undertaken as any kind of coherent master cultural strategy. Rather it unfolded in an uneven and fragmented way.

During this period that bore witness to public health concerns (Bailey 1987, p. 147; Huggins 2004, p. 109), as well as the trade union movement, which, in turn, led to the transformation of working conditions (Dixon 2013, p. 10), sport and leisure became rationalized and laced with dominant Christian values that were reflective of the Victorian period (Brailsford 1991; Wigglesworth 1996). This notion is typified by Calhoun (1987, p. 258) when he explains that “new moral standards of the period such as self-government, respect for law, social service and good citizenship” were beginning to be written into the sport experience. Equally, Guttmann (1979) and Stewart (1989) describe how work-related techniques such as Taylorist and Fordist models were soon to be embedded in modern sport, showcasing its utility as a value-laden practice.

Perhaps the most important site for the re-writing of the codes of sporting practice were the English public schools, and they would provide further inspiration to de Coubertin as he began to develop his Olympic strategy. He visited public schools across England, most notably Rugby School, and in various writings (e.g. L’education en Angleterre – colleges et universites 1888) de Coubertin emphasizes the moral and athletic education which laid the ground work for good citizenship, often holding headmaster Thomas Arnold responsible for transforming sport pedagogy (Lucas 1976, p. 50). The “Rugby way”, he insisted, was to infuse “Muscular Christian” values, a doctrine relating to the positive moral influence of physical exercise and sport providing an ethical basis for and training in moral behaviour that is transferable to the world beyond (McIntosh 1980, p. 27). Thus, inspired by the place of sport in the public school system; the rationalization of British sport when combined with the values of Muscular Christianity (embedded within sporting activities); and the metaphysical and aesthetic values associated with the Olympics of Ancient Greece, de Coubertin began to shape his Modern Olympic dream (Lucas 1967, p. 60). This dream was devoted to the Hellenic trinity of body, mind and spirit, coupled with a compelling faith in the character building Christian values of English sports education (Holt 1989, p. 273).

The real heterogeneous impacts of the Olympic and Paralympic Games movements

Pierre de Coubertin’s philosophy of sport or Olympism is a hybrid of the ideal Greek, the ideal chivalric, and the ideal English. His enormously energetic pen, over a 50 year period, never failed to mention a personal debt of gratitude to the English life-style of his own century. Preoccupied with Arnoldianism, the gentlemanly code, the deeper meaning of the amateur spirit, muscular Christianity, his writings reflect a highly personalized definition of these esoteric phrases. (Lucas 1976, p. 51)

As Lucas indicates above, Olympism is couched in discussions of elite education and amateurism, and as such, we suggest that it has never been as inclusive or socially homogenous as its late-modern marketing suggests. After all, late nineteenth century education and codes of amateurism were, in fact, used to signify social status in a heavily class-based structure. Indeed, in his book The Theory of the Leisure Class, Thorstein Veblen (1899, reprinted in 1925) explains how amateur sport was used to demonstrate social power and prestige via “conspicuous consumption”. This, in turn, was expressed in the Olympic movement through the condition of mandatory amateurism and, as an extension of this, the “mechanics clause” was applied to athletics. In essence, this would preclude the admission of lower status individuals with manual jobs (such as mechanics, artisans or labourers) into the Games for fear of physical advantage (Young 1998, p. 30). Cashmore (2010, p. 388) recounts that as early as 1866, the Amateur Athletic Association (Britain) officially defined an amateur as:

A person who had either never competed (1) in open competition, (2) for prize money, (3) for admission money, (4) with professionals, (5) never taught or assisted in the pursuit of athletic exercise, or (6) was not a mechanic, artisan or labourer.

This political decision to exclude working class professionals has always, we suggest, prevented the Olympic Games from holding status as a truly inclusive event. ...

Table of contents

• Cover
• Title
• 1  Introduction
• 2  The 2012 Paralympics and Perceptions of Disability in the UK
• 3  The GB Football Team for London 2012: Whats All the Fuss About?
• 4  London 2012: The Womens Games? Examining the Photographic Evidence
• 5  A Critical Examination of the London 2012 Legacy
• 6  Conclusion: Diminishing Contrasts, Increasing Varieties
• Index