David Goldblatt - The Games: A Global History of the Olympics

Also by David Goldblatt

THE BALL IS ROUND

THE FOOTBALL BOOK

THE GAME OF OUR LIVES

FUTEBOL NATION

CATHERINE CLARKE

DAVID GOLDBLATT is the author of The Ball Is Round, a best-selling global history of soccer, and, most recently, The Game of Our Lives, which won the William Hill Sports Book of the Year Award. He has taught the sociology of sport at Bristol University, De Montford University, Leicester College, and Pitzer College in Los Angeles. He lives in Bristol, England.

The definitive sports and social history of the modern Olympic gamesby a New York Times best-selling sportswriter.

FOR MILLIONS OF PEOPLE around the world, the Summer and Winter Games are a joy and a treasure, but how did they develop into a global colossus? How have they been buffeted byand, in turn, how have they affectedworld events? Why do we care about them so much?

From the reinvention of the Games in Athens in 1896 to Rio in 2016, best-selling sportswriter David Goldblatt brilliantly traces their history through national triumphs and tragedies, individual victories and failures. Here is the story of grand Olympic traditions such as winners medals, the torch relay, and the eternal flame. Here is the story of popular Olympic events such as gymnastics, the marathon, and alpine skiing (as well as discontinued ones like tug-of-war). And here in all their glory are Olympic icons from Jesse Owens to Nadia Comaneci, Abebe Bikila to Bob Beamon, the Dream Team to Usain Bolt.

Hailed in the Wall Street Journal for writing about sports with the expansive eye of a social and cultural critic, Goldblatt goes beyond the medal counts to tell how women fought to be included in the Olympics on equal terms, how the wounded of World War II led to the Paralympics, and how the Olympics reflect changing attitudes to race and ethnicity. He explores the tensions between the Games amateur ideals and professionalization and commercialism in sports, the pitched battles between cities for the right to host the Games, and their often disappointing economic legacy. And in covering such seminal moments as Jesse Owens and Hitler at Berlin in 1936, the Black Power salute at Mexico City in 1968, the massacre of Israeli athletes at Munich in 1972, and the Miracle on Ice at Lake Placid in 1980, Goldblatt shows how prominently the modern Olympics have highlighted profound domestic and international conflicts.

Illuminated with dazzling vignettes from over a century of the Olympics, this stunningly researched and engagingly written history captures the excitement, drama, and kaleidoscopic experience of the Games.

Praise for DAVID GOLDBLATT
and his best-selling THE BALLIS ROUND:
A GLOBAL HISTORY OF SOCCER

Magisterial.

FRANKLIN FOER, New Republic

Goldblatt doesnt just understand the social context of the game, he also has a nose for the best stories. This book is a mindboggling achievement.

SIMON KUPER, coauthor of Soccernomics

What Goldblatt achieves is a remarkable work of archival synthesis that conjures a broad, vivid portrait of soccers ability to concentrate not only the energies of its fans but also those of the market and state.

RATTAWUT LAPCHAROENSAP, Bookforum

Elegant, witty, stylish and crisp.... Goldblatts stunning book will be the measure against which all other such volumes are judged.

JOHN FOOT, Guardian

Astonishing.... A scholarly masterwork but a highly readable one. [It] could replace an entire bookcase by itself.

Independent

DAVID GOLDBLATT

THE GAMES

A GLOBAL HISTORY OF THE OLYMPICS

W. W. Norton & Company

Independent Publishers Since 1923

New York London

Copyright 2016 by Tobaccoathletic Limited

First published in the U.K. by Macmillan Publishers International Limited

All rights reserved
First Edition

For information about permission to reproduce selections from this book,
write to Permissions, W. W. Norton & Company, Inc.,
500 Fifth Avenue, New York, NY 10110

For information about special discounts for bulk purchases, please contact
W. W. Norton Special Sales at specialsales@wwnorton.com or 800-233-4830

Production manager: Louise Mattarelliano

Jacket design by Pete Garceau

Jacket photographs iStock / Getty Images

The Library of Congress has cataloged the printed edition as follows:

Names: Goldblatt, David, 1965- author.
Title: The games : a global history of the Olympics / David Goldblatt.
Description: New York : W. W. Norton & Company, [2016] | Includes
bibliographical references and index.
Identifiers: LCCN 2016022203 | ISBN 9780393292770 (hardcover)
Subjects: LCSH: OlympicsHistory.
Classification: LCC GV721.5 .G615 2016 | DDC 796.4809dc23 LC record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/2016022203

ISBN 978-0-393-25411-2 (e-book)

W. W. Norton & Company, Inc.
500 Fifth Avenue, New York, N.Y. 10110
www.wwnorton.com

W. W. Norton & Company Ltd.
15 Carlisle Street, London W1D 3BS

Page numbers listed correspond to the print edition of this book. You can use your devices search function to locate particular terms in the text.

4 100-metre relay 249, 256, 316

7/7 London bombings 2005 411

9/11 382, 4378

20-kilometre walk 257

100 metres 121, 187, 208, 2467, 250, 256, 268, 316, 324, 384, 4079

womens 408

100-metre freestyle 228

100-metre relay 407

200 metres 89, 316, 407

400 metres 801, 121, 182, 301, 344, 365, 368

400-metre freestyle 26970

800 metres 11415, 182, 301

womens 257

1,500 metres 122, 202

2010 GamesWatch 424

2012 (sitcom) 413

3,000-metre steeplechase 217

3,000-metre team race 122

5,000 metres 122, 21718

5,000-metre cross-country 106, 142

8,000-metre cross-country 106

10,000 metres 122, 142, 21718, 257, 41315

10,000-metre cross-country 106

AAA see Amateur Athletics Association

AAC see Amateur Athletics Club

AAU see American Athletic Union

ABC 299, 312, 315

Aberdare, Lord 201

Abrahams, Harold 121, 201

Acosta, Rubn 440

ACS-Olympiad 304

Adams, Lus 433

Adams, Nicola 415

Adidas 238, 256, 331, 394

advertising 162, 369

AEK Athens 385, 386

Afghanistan 293

African American athletes 121, 151, 16770, 178, 1813, 208, 2489, 256, 2713, 31415, 415

African athletes 251, 344

Afro-Caribbean athletes 415

Agenda 2000 392

Agenda 2020 4389, 4446

AHA see Atlanta Housing Authority

Ahmad al-Sabah, Sheikh 394

Ahn, Victor 4289

Aicher, Otl 2345

Ainslie, Ben 416

Airoldi, Carlo 47

Akhai (newspaper) 190

Al-Qaeda 382

Albania 251

Albers, Josef 235

Albert, King of the Belgians 104

Albertville Winter Olympics 1992 369, 370

Alexander, Reginald Stanley 200

Alexander the Great 9

Alexandra, Queen 83

Alexeyev, Vasily 270

All Blacks 292

Almaty Winter Olympics 2022 bid 394, 438

Alon, Dan 285

Alpheus, River 2423

Amateur Athletics Association (AAA) 24, 41, 201

Amateur Athletics Club (AAC) 234, 24

Amateur Athletics Union 169

amateurism in sport 2, 36, 39, 199, 238, 256

and the ancient Olympics 18