Paradoxes and contestations of Olympism in the history of the modern Olympic Movement / Dikaia Chatziefstathiou

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Paradoxes and contestations of Olympism in the history of the modern Olympic Movement / Dikaia Chatziefstathiou

The ideology of Olympism has long been criticized for being inherently contradictory, its call for universal ideals and equal opportunities for all people and all nations belied by the exclusionary, elitist and racist nature of its early practices. This article advances a more complex interpretation, namely that the paradoxes to be found in the discourse of Pierre de Coubertin, Carl Diem and other exponents of Olympism and the changes to Olympic practice they initiated reflect the divergent forces and contestations of the geopolitical and social forces and events they faced.