Government involvement in high performance sport: An Australian national sporting organisation perspective

The purpose of this paper is to examine the relationship between the Australian Sports Commission (ASC) and Summer Olympic National Sporting Organisations (NSOs) to determine the effect the relationship has on Olympic performance outcomes. Five Olympic NSOs were examined: Athletics Australia, Cycling Australia, Rowing Australia, Swimming Australia and Yachting Australia. All five NSOs represent sports in which Australia has consistently achieved strong results at previous Olympic Games. These NSOs receive significant funding from the ASC and, as such, are expected to achieve success at the Olympic Games. The ASC–NSO relationship was examined through an agency theory framework whereby the ‘contracts’ between the ASC (principal) and the NSOs (agents) were investigated through a survey, interviews and document analysis to identify potential management issues that may affect Olympic performance outcomes, such as agent or principal opportunism. The findings identified a lack of a collaborative high performance sport system in Australia, with the findings emphasising concerns over the ASC’s management of NSO programmes. While the ASC staff identified their organisation as the leader of high performance sport in Australia, the study’s NSO participants did not believe that the ASC had the capacity, capability and knowledge to fulfil this role.No Full Tex

Judging Jack: Rethinking Historical Agency and the Sport Hero

One aspect of the dizzying (aesthetic, cultural, linguistic, visual, and post-modern) ‘turns’ Sport history has taken in recent times has been the revision/deconstruction of sporting heroes and demystification of historical narratives. This, in turn, has attended to larger historical concerns about the centrality of agents and agency in narrative making. Encouraged by these directions, this paper reconsiders the primacy afforded agents and their agency within national Olympic history creation. I examine revered 1930s track athlete Jack Lovelock who features predominantly within New Zealand’s Olympic history. The paper aims to prompt contemplation about sport heroes. In particular, I argue sport historians should continue to decentre sport figures and bring alternate meanings, interpretations, and renderings of agents to the fore

Medication use by Team South Africa during the XXVIIIth Olympiad: A model for quantity estimation for multi-coded team events

Objective. This descriptive study was undertaken to report the medications used by the athletes and officials of Team South Africa at the 2004 Olympic Games and to provide a model for the estimation of quantities to be used for planning support to future events. Setting. South African medical facility, 2004 Olympic Games, Athens, Greece. Methods. The names of the medications, including the dosage and quantity of medications dispensed, were recorded in the pharmacy stock control book at the South African medical facility, 2004 Olympic Games, Athens, Greece. Retrospective review of patient files and medical encounter forms was also undertaken to check against the pharmacy stock control book to ensure complete data capture of dispensed medications. Main outcome measures. Quantities of medications consumed during the observation period. The units of medication consumed per travelling team member were calculated by dividing the number of units (tablets, capsules, tubes, inhalers, bottles and ampoules) used during the trip by the total number of travelling team members. Results. Complete records of medications included in the travelling pharmacy are described. Quantities of medications included ranged from single units to 2 250 units and percentage use of various medications varied from 0% to 100% of stocks. Units per team member ranged from 0 to 9.43. Medications were consumed from all categories of agents. The most utilised agents included the analgesics, musculoskeletal and non-steroidal anti-inflammatory agents as well as certain vitamin and mineral supplements. Conclusions. This study describes the consumption of pharmacological agents by the athletes and officials of Team South Africa during the Athens 2004 Olympic Games. It also provides a model to assist with the estimation of quantities of medications to be included in the travelling pharmacy for future international multi-coded sports events

Olympic solidarity: global order and the diffusion of modern sport between 1961 to 1980

This thesis examines the emergence of Olympic sport aid policy in the early phase of its establishment in 1961 with the founding of the Commission For International Olympic Aid (CIOA) and the Olympic Solidarity (OS) in the early 1970s. The study aims to explore the global process of cultural flows of Olympism and modern sport, and the international relations involved in constructing, modifying or resisting the Olympic 'message'. A tentative conceptualisation of 'aid donors' (core and semi-periphery) and the 'aid recipients' (peripheral states) is outlined in relation to the global sport interaction between nation states. At the macro level, it is clear that the bi-political order of the Cold War, the decolonisation process, and the development aid projects provided to the newly independent countries in Africa and Asia influenced agents' approaches in forming the sport aid policy and the promotion of Olympic institutions. At the meso level, the IOC relations with UNESCO, IFs, regional games and National Olympic Committees and the emergence of hyper nationalism, commercialism and professionalism impinge on the creation of the global sport aid programme that emphasises the hegemony of the Olympic movement. The research subscribes to critical realism as its ontological and epistemological base and the principal method employed to investigate is a form of qualitative content analysis using a protocol drawn from ethnographic content analysis. Inductive and deductive techniques were utilised to analyse 355 official documents and agents' correspondence in English, French and German gathered from Olympic Museum archives and facilitated by the application of QSR NUD*IST software for qualitative data analysis. A socio-economic and political account of the postcolonial era is provided as viewed through 'prism' of modernisation, cultural imperialism, dependency and figuration theories. The thesis provides an approach to the evaluation of the global diffusion of sport and Olympism through the aid programmes revealing complex responses and engagement with global processes, contextualised by (in some ways) homogenous and (in others) heterogeneous nature of the global sport

A grounded theory of psychological resilience in Olympic champions

Objective: Although it is well-established that the ability to manage stress is a prerequisite of sporting excellence, the construct of psychological resilience has yet to be systematically examined in athletic performers. The study reported here sought to explore and explain the relationship between psychological resilience and optimal sport performance. Design and Method: Twelve Olympic champions (8 men and 4 women) from a range of sports were interviewed regarding their experiences of withstanding pressure during their sporting careers. A grounded theory approach was employed throughout the data collection and analysis, and interview transcripts were analyzed using open, axial and selective coding. Methodological rigor was established by incorporating various verification strategies into the research process, and the resultant grounded theory was also judged using the quality criteria of fit, work, relevance, and modifiability. Results and Conclusions: Results indicate that numerous psychological factors (relating to a positive personality, motivation, confidence, focus, and perceived social support) protect the world’s best athletes from the potential negative effect of stressors by influencing their challenge appraisal and meta-cognitions. These processes promote facilitative responses that precede optimal sport performance. The emergent theory provides sport psychologists, coaches and national sport organizations with an understanding of the role of resilience in athletes’ lives and the attainment of optimal sport performance

Sports Arbitration. Which Features Can Be "Exported" to Other Fields of Arbitration?

This article explaind why resort to arbitration is so widespread in the sport sector and describes the peculiar features of sports arbitration. Then, it analyses those peculiar features, as well as the benefits thereof, and suggests which of them could be also applied in the arbitral settlement of disputes in other business sectors

Soft power and its audiences: Tweeting the Olympics from London 2012 to Sochi 2014

The ‘Tweeting the Olympics’ project (the subject of this special section of Participations) must be understood in the context of efforts by host states, the International Olympic Committee (IOC) and other actors involved in the Games to cultivate and communicate a set of meanings to audiences about both the Olympics events and the nations taking part. Olympic Games are not only sporting competitions; they are also exercises in the management of relations between states and publics, at home and overseas, in order to augment the attractiveness and influence or the soft power of the states involved. Soft power is most successful when it goes unnoticed according to its chief proponent Joseph Nye. If so, how can we possibly know whether soft power works? This article reviews the state of the field in thinking about public diplomacy, cultural diplomacy and soft power in the period of this project (2012-14), focusing particularly on how the audiences of soft power projects, like the London and Sochi Games, were conceived and addressed. One of the key questions this project addresses is whether international broadcasters such as the BBCWS and RT used social media during the Games to promote a cosmopolitan dialogue with global audiences and/or merely to integrate social media so as to project and shape national soft power. We argue first that the contested nature of the Olympic Games calls into question received theories of soft power, public and cultural diplomacy. Second, strategic national narratives during the Olympics faced additional challenges, particularly due to the tensions between the national and the international character of the Games. Third, the new media ecology and shift to a network paradigm further threatens the asymmetric power relations of the broadcasting paradigm forcing broadcasters to reassess their engagement with what was formerly known as ‘the audience’ and the targets of soft power

Drug doping in sports : an overview and recommendations for the Maltese context

The use of legal and illicit medical substances is widespread in international sport and becoming more complex. Serious concern exists about the use of illicit substances, as listed in the list of the World Anti Doping Agency (WADA) of prohibited substances. This phenomenon is also present among Maltese athletes and positive doping cases have been reported in the media among local sportspersons from varying disciplines. In this paper, a review of the current international conventions with respect to drug doping in sport will be given together with an overview of the prohibited substances. The Maltese situation will also be assessed. Limited local data indicate that this is an underground phenomenon which has existed and persisted over the years. The testing programs, with some exceptions, have to date been very poor and most sporting disciplines are not tested regularly. Recommendations will be made in order to readdress the lacuna in data available, as well as the knowledge and education of this subject among local sportspersons, coaches and sports officials, and various health care professionals. In addition, a call is made for Malta to implement the WADA Code as soon as possible, and sign and ratify the UNESCO and Council of Europe conventions, while ensuring that adequate resources are made available for their enforcement.peer-reviewe

The discourse of Olympic security 2012 : London 2012

This paper uses a combination of CDA and CL to investigate the discursive realization of the security operation for the 2012 London Olympic Games. Drawing on Didier Bigo’s (2008) conceptualisation of the ‘banopticon’, it address two questions: what distinctive linguistic features are used in documents relating to security for London 2012; and, how is Olympic security realized as a discursive practice in these documents? Findings suggest that the documents indeed realized key banoptic features of the banopticon: exceptionalism, exclusion and prediction, as well as what we call ‘pedagogisation’. Claims were made for the exceptional scale of the Olympic events; predictive technologies were proposed to assess the threat from terrorism; and documentary evidence suggests that access to Olympic venues was being constituted to resemble transit through national boundarie