The Institutional Framework for the Development of Olympic Education and the Role of the National Olympic Academy

### Introduction

The title of my contribution is exactly as requested of me by the International Olympic Academy (IOA). However, the methodology adopted and the contents of this paper may disappoint my hosts, as I am not going to focus solely on the role of the National Olympic Academies (NOA).

Let me give the reasons for the approach I have adopted. It is my view that Olympic education is a complex process and that, therefore, given the current text of the Olympic Charter, the institutional framework of an NOA is very dependent on the institutional architecture and intersection between the International Olympic Committee (IOC), the National Olympic Committees (NOC), and the IOA. Hence, I am of the opinion that any analysis must necessarily be holistic or transversal, and less sectorial.

This paper can accordingly be broken down into two separate steps. Once I have demonstrated the fundamental importance of the Olympic Charter (OC), I will identify and give a necessarily brief analysis of its main provisions that are expressly or tacitly related to Olympic education, in either material or, above all, institutional terms. Finally, and given the lacunae identified, I will take the liberty to suggest a new treatment of Olympic education in the OC by proposing some changes in its current text with the intention to facilitate the Olympic education chain.

### The Olympic Charter: Definition and Status

In the Introduction to the OC, its form and purpose are immediately made apparent: the codification of the Fundamental Principles of Olympism, Rules, and Bye-laws adopted by the IOC. The OC governs the organization, action, and operation of the Olympic Movement and sets forth the conditions for the celebration of the Olympic Games.

In the Introduction, the scope of the OC is also set forth, by referring to the three main purposes which, in essence, the OC aims to serve: (a) a basic instrument of a constitutional nature, which governs and recalls the fundamental principles and essential values of Olympism; (b) the statutes for the IOC; (c) the definition of the “main reciprocal rights and obligations of the three main constituents of the Olympic Movement, namely the IOC, IF (International Federations) and the NOC, as well as the Organizing Committees for the Olympic Games (OCOG).”

In legal terms, the Olympic Charter is just a document approved by corporate body under Swiss private law (IOC). However, “in the eyes of” the IOC as well as of the whole Olympic Movement, the OC amounts to a full fledged international treaty, with a universal legal nature, which is not a result of its legal nature, but arises rather by virtue of a moral authority, of an extra-legal element, that is, the social, economic, and sporting magnitude of the Olympic Games. Only this context can express a general acceptance of the legal primacy of the OC by states, international organizations, and different courts.

It follows from all of the above that despite being an atypical legal instrument, the OC has a unique, universal, inspiring, and powerful nature. Hence, all provided or silent in the text of the OC reveals what the CIO considers to be or not to be important for the Olympic Movement. That is the case of the existent and omitted provisions regarding Olympic education.

### “Olympic Education” at the Olympic Charter: an Overview of the Relevant Provisions

Olympic education is enshrined in the OC either explicitly or implicitly. The relevant Principles and Rules are identified and analyzed below.

First Fundamental Principle of Olympism:

> 1. Olympism is a philosophy of life, exalting and combining in a balanced whole the qualities of body, will, and mind. Blending sport with culture and education, Olympism seeks to create a way of life based on the joy of effort, the educational value of good example, and respect for universal fundamental ethical principles.

#### Rule 1 (Composition and General Organisation of the Olympic Movement)

> 1. Under the supreme authority of the International Olympic Committee, the Olympic Movement encompasses organisations, athletes, and other persons who agree to be guided by the Olympic Charter. The goal of the Olympic Movement is to contribute to building a peaceful and better world by educating youth through sport practised in accordance with Olympism and its values.

It follows from these provisions that the first priority of the Olympic Movement is much more than the periodic holding of the Olympic Games. The objective is clear: to contribute to World Peace. Olympic values are what the Olympic Movement has to offer in order to achieve this objective. Sport is the essential vehicle. The education of young people is the essential means. This is what Olympic education is.

Using the analogy of a major construction project, the IOC is both the architect and the entity that awards the contract for the works, and there are many organisations to which these contracts are awarded. According to the Tender Programme and the Works Specifications stipulated by the IOC, the works are carried out by the said organisations under the supervision of the IOC. The works, which must take place on a daily basis, are sports activity, which must be undertaken by all of the contractors. The cement, without which there can be no construction, is Olympic Education.

>1. For a comprehensive analysis of the status and content of the Olympic Charter, cf. Alexandre Miguel MESTRE, The Law of the Olympic Games, The Hague, Cambridge University Press & TMC Asser Press, 2009, pp. 9-20.
>2. The Fundamental Principles were introduced at the 1979 version of the OC. One of the aims of the Olympic movement was already to educate young people through sport.
>3. This is just a subjective interpretation. Unfortunately, the OC does not define the concept of Olympic education. In defence of the specificity of all things Olympic, we consider that the OC could go further, i.e. by defining what Olympic education is and what its distinguishing features are. This is because, for example, there is education via sport in non-Olympic sports. Moreover, even outside of sport, education is commonly linked with culture and youth and it makes sense that the preferred targets of educational processes are young people, because their character and personality are in the process of formation. There would certainly be more ethics in business or politics if those involved received an ethical education. It is therefore necessary to clarify the following: Are we dealing here with something that Olympism disseminates or with something, which is received from outside and is included in the OC?

> (…) The IOC’s role is:
> 1. to encourage and support the promotion of ethics in sport as well as education of youth through sport and to dedicate its efforts to ensuring that, in sport, the spirit of fair play prevails and violence is banned;
> (…)
> 13. to encourage and support a responsible concern for environmental issues, to promote sustainable development in sport, and to require that the Olympic Games are held accordingly;
> (…)
> 15. to encourage and support initiatives blending sport with culture and education;
> 16. to encourage and support the activities of the International Olympic Academy (IOA) and other institutions which dedicate themselves to Olympic education.

#### Rule 2 (Mission and Role of the IOC)

This outlines a rule with legal value, not a merely programmatic one, because it gives the IOC specific duties in the field of education. In fact, it recognizes a right of Olympic education with a legal value, which turns that right into an obligation, in casu, an obligation of the IOC. Rather than directly governing that obligation, the rule governs the role of the CIO in the context of that obligation. In other words, this rule gives some discretionary power to the IOC: there is an IOC obligation as to result – to encourage and support – not an obligation of means.

In our opinion, to encourage and support implies a generic mandate of action that is required from the CIO, which is ensured by necessary positive actions. It is expected that the CIO adopts its own actions and simultaneously encourages, enables, stimulates, and authorizes activities from third parties. In fact, what the OC seems to ask the IOC is to promote (Olympic) education through (Olympic) sport and to promote the activities carried out by academic institutions in the pursuit of their Olympic education goals.

The single academic institution which merits an express reference in the provision under analysis is the IOA, an institution that has emerged as a way to compensate for IOC’s lack of time to devote to Olympic education so that it fulfills “delegated” competences which originally belonged to the IOC. Contrary to the past, the legislator does not mention the IOA’s mission.

> 4. The first time the word education appeared in an Olympic regulation was in 1933. In the document entitled “The IOC and the Modern Olympic Games,” physical education was mentioned.
> 5. At the IOC Session in Athens in 1961, Avery Brundage said he expected the newly founded Academy to make decisive efforts to overcome the difficulties the Olympic movement had to face. The unexpected development of the Olympic Games did not leave enough time for the IOC to work equally for all Olympic principles. The gap was to be closed by the Olympic Academy, cf. Norbert MÜLLER. One Hundred Years of Olympic Congresses 1894-1994, Special Edition for Participants in the Centennial Olympic Congress, Paris/August/September 1994, p. 146.
> 6. The 1966 Olympic Regulations have introduced a reference to the IOA, describing its objectives as follows:(…) to create an international cultural centre at Olympia, site of the ancient Games where the high ideals of amateur

The provision under analysis also mentions the NOA. Inspired by the work of the IOA , there are hundreds of NOAs around the world which undertake Olympic education initiatives within NOAs own educational jurisdictions, complementing the IOA activities.

However, we must reflect on the following reality that neither the IOA nor the NOA are subject to an express reference in documents that govern or describe the Olympic Movement, which immediately casts doubt on their institutional role and recognition, as well as on their level of subjection to the rights and obligations that these documents provide. Here are some examples of those documents: the IOC Code of Ethics, which applies to Olympic parties; one publication of the IOC Olympic Museum , which describes the role of the Olympic Family in the framework of Education and Culture Through Sport; a factsheet about the Olympic Movement elaborated by the IOC; a publication of the International Olympic Truce Centre; the IOC Guide on Sport, Environment, and Sustainable Development.

This reality can be seen either as the motive or the consequence of the main problem faced nowadays in Olympic education. Kostas GEORGIADIS , Honorary Dean of the IOA, and Conrado DURANTÈZ, President of the Spanish Olympic Academy, there are still many more NOCs than NOAs; several of the NOAs are not always very active or independent. In this clear diagnosis, Kostas GEORGIADIS puts forward a solution: [t]oday, more than ever before, the International Olympic Committee is called upon to support the work of the International Olympic Academy and, thereby, of National Olympic Academies.

Competitive sport were first conceived and realized, and to study and to promote the social, educational, aesthetical, ethical, and spiritual values of the Olympic Movement.

> 7.Cf. Nikos FILARETOS, National Olympic Academies”, International Olympic Academy: 9th International Session for Presidents or Directors of National Olympic Academies and Officials of National Olympic Committees, 12-19 May 2008, Ancient Olympia, Greece, 12-19 May 2008.
>
> 8.Cf. Deanna BONDER, “The Legacy of the Olympic Games for Education, 1984-2000: A Paper presented to the 2002 IOC Symposium on the Legacy of the Olympic Games, Lausanne, Switzerland, November 2002, p. 8.
>
> 9.Cf. K. TOOHEY and A.J VEAL, The Olympic Games. A Social Science Perspective, 2nd Edition, London, Cabi, 2007, p. 55.
>
> 10. The Olympic Movement, 2nd edition, 2007.
>
> 11. Factsheet: The Olympic Movement Update- January 2006.
>
> 12. In a report made by DEMOS-Athens (Rachel Briggs, Helen McCARTHY and Alexis ZORBAS) to the International Olympic Truce Centre, a Figure with the “Institutional setting of the world of sport” makes no reference to the IOA or to the NOA – Cf. 16 Days: The role of the Olympic Truce in the toolkit for peace, London, International Olympic Truce Centre, 2004, p. 64.
>
> 13.Cf. National Olympic Academies”, International Olympic Academy: 9th International Session for Presidents or Directors of National Olympic Academies and Officials of National Olympic Committees, 12-19 May 2008, Ancient Olympia, Greece, 12-19 May 2008, pp. 1-3.
>
> 14.(…) we find ourselves in the disproportionate situation of having 205 officially recognized NOCs, nut only 137 NOAs with a large percentage of these being purely nominal and not engaged in any regular or ongoing activity, contrary to what should be the case. (…) we consider that the task of Olympic education lies fundamentally and almost exclusively with the NOCs (…) We cannot but admit that the NOCs, excessively centered on preparing their athletes for participation in the Olympic Games, have delegated their Olympic dissemination and education functions to the NOAs, hence the importance of the NOAs’ work, as the proper functioning of an NOA, with the necessary support of its NOC, implies that it can, as the specific educational driving force, promote and encourage all or part of the rich cultural areas of Olympism, cf. “Olympic Academies: official school of Olympic Education”, 6th World Forum on Sport, Education and Culture: Sport and Education for the new generation, IOC – International Cooperation and Development Department, Busan, 25 to 27 September 2008.

We can not agree more. Indeed, if one looks at the above mentioned Rule 2 of the Olympic Charter, we find that the leading role that is given to the IOC is not the organization of the Olympic Games, and, of course, this hierarchy of priorities is also shed in the NOC, namely the case of the British Olympic Association, which is explained by Jim PARRY .

Note the word used by Kostas GEORGIADIS- support – which is precisely the one provided by the OC. The question seems not to be limited to financial support, moreover, because it has been in existence through Olympic Solidarity, as the author points out in his other article, and as is demonstrated by the Director of the IOC International Cooperation and Development Department GANDA SITHOLE . In fact, mainly in Africa, besides the lack of financial and substantial resources, support is also needed to fight ordinary problems, such as lack of facilities, lack of teachers, lack of materials for education and teaching. Therefore other kinds of support are urgently needed. As far as we are concerned, that support could be the reinforcement of the IOA status within the OC, which would probably overcome its current lack of recognition by other relevant stakeholders in the framework of Olympic education.

The expression, educational institutions which dedicate themselves to Olympic education, is broad enough to include public and private institutions, governmental organizations dedicated to education, national or international. Fit here, therefore, institutions ranging from schools to the IOC Olympic Studies Centre; the Institutes of Higher Education and Olympic Study Centres across the world; the IPCC (International Pierre de Coubertin Committee); the International Olympic Truce Foundation, and the International Truce Centre, or the UNESCO .

We believe that what is essentially the scope of the CIO is to encourage and support not only through financial resources, but also by means of infrastructures – creation or lending of infrastructures, namely for research centres – or by the provision of services. The support can be also given through granting of honorific recognition for the objectives of general interest pursued by the IOA and the remaining institutions devoted to Olympic education. A broader interpretation of the word ‘support’ will lead to defend a stronger role of the IOC, that is, a support that goes through direct actions of intervention, including the dictation of organizational, structural, and regulatory aspects of the academic institutions at stake, i.e. mechanisms of ordinance and interventionism, something that does not seem to be the real intention of the legislator and of the bodies concerned.

> 15.Cf. “Olympic education in practice,” A paper prepared for the Centre d’Estudis Olímpics (CEO), Universitat Autònoma de Barcelona (UAB), November 2003, p.3.
> 16.Cf. “The endeavors for the IOC for the promotion of Olympic Education Programmes in developing countries,” Proceedings of the 8th Joint International Session for Presidents or Directors of National Olympic Academies and officials of National Olympic Committees, 23-30 May 2006, Ancient Olympia, International Olympic Academy, pp. 43-44.
> 17.Cf. Roland NAUL, Olympic Education, Oxford, Meyer & Meyer Sport, 2008, p. 83.
> 18. In the section dedicated to Pseudo Amateurs of the 1956 Olympic Regulations, one can find a reference to educational institutions.
> 19.Cf. paragraph 6 of the Le Havre Congress Final Declaration (1997).
> 20.Cf. the Preamble and Rules 2.3; 3.3; 10.1; 10.2; and 10.3 of the International Charter of Physical Education and Sport.

So far as the environment is concerned, it is noteworthy that contrary to the current version, the original version of paragraph 13 referred to the essential role of education in the promotion of the defence of the environment in the context of sport in general and the Olympic Games in particular. Only via education is it possible to create an overall awareness of the need to preserve the environment, i.e. in the context of major sport events, particularly the Olympic Games. The values shared between the areas of the environment and sport could be the starting points for this educational project which is a duty of all of us. The IOC has not only included the environment in the Olympic Charter, but has also produced information and held regional conferences and seminars.

We believe, however, that the legislator that is, the IOC members in the framework of the IOC Session – should have even opted for a more comprehensive formulation to give the greatest possible effect to a residual expression. One should bear in mind that there are some other and relevant institutions that are not, by nature, educational, but perform a significant educational role in the context of sport. We refer, for example, to organizations like the European Union , the Council of Europe , the IPC (International Paralympic Committee), WADA (World Anti-doping Agency), CIJM (The International Mediterranean Games Committee), Panathlon International and FISU (The International University Sports Federation).

Moreover, there are increasing public and private institutions not devoted to education and sport, but with which cooperation can be developed, namely at the level of sponsorship, patronage, concessions facilities, etc, as recent NOA experiences have demonstrated, particularly in France and in the USA.

Also noteworthy is the rules view, with which I agree, that education is not and cannot be a wholly isolated phenomena. Education always involves synergies, namely with young people, culture, and Olympism. That approach explains why the IOC is endowed with the Commission for Culture and Olympic Education, which resulted from the merger between the Commission for the Olympic Education and the Commission for the Olympic Culture, in 2000, under the then great reform undertaken in the IOC.

> 21. The text of the former Rule 2 (13) stated as follows: (…) the IOC sees that the Olympic Games are held in conditions which demonstrate a responsible concern for environmental issues and encourages the Olympic Movement to demonstrate a responsible concern in its activities and educates all those connected with the Olympic Movement as to the importance of sustainable development.
> 22.Cf., inter alia, the Manual on Sport and the Environment (1997) and Le Mouvement Olympique et l’Environment (1997) and Guide on Sport, Environment and Sustainable Development (2006).
> 23.Cf. Article 165 TFEU.
> 24.Cf. Articles 1(ii); 3 (2); 5; and 11 of the European Sports Charter; cf. the definition of fair-play provided in the Code of Sport Ethics; cf. Article 6 of the Council of Europe No. 135 Anti-Doping Convention.
> 25.Cf. Chapters 1.1 and 2.4 of the IPC Bye-laws.
> 26.Cf. World Anti-doping Code, namely its Fundamental Rationale and the Articles 10.10.1; 18.1; 18.2; 18.4; 19.1; 20.1.9; 20.2.8; 20.3.11; 20.4.9; 20.6.7 and 20.7.6.
> 27.Cf. Charte du CIJM: Principes Fondamentaux – 2; 3; and 9.
> 28.Cf. Article 2 (c); (e); and (h) of the Panathlon International’s Bye-laws.
> 29.Cf. Article 2 of the Statutes of FISU. Pursuant to Article 138 of the same statutes, the Committee for the Study of University Sport (CESU) – is one of the FISU Permanent Committees.
> 30.Cf. André LECLERCQ, “Postface: Culture sportive et education olympique”, in Les valeurs de l’Olympisme. Un modèle éducatif en débat, Edited by Michaël ATTALi, Jean SAINT-MARTIN, Simon LEVEQUE, Lucien BRUNETTI and Jean BIZET, L’Harmattan, 2009, p. 268.
> 31.Cf. Jeff HOWARD, “La creation d’une Académie Olympique aux États-Unis”, in Marketing des organizations sportives: construire les réseaux et les relations, Edited by Alain FERRAND, Scott McCARTHY and Thierry ZINTZ, Brussels, Éditions De Boeck Université, 2009, p. 181. The NOA is one of the main constituents of USOC; it is at the center and interacts with USOC, IOC, regular participants, athletes, and the general public – cf. p. 187.

Notwithstanding the fact that this amalgamation or consolidation into a single Commission merger aimed to add efforts to achieve greater accomplishments, and, at least theoretically, of trying to solve the contradictions behind the traditional Olympic sport, culture and education, the truth is that some consider that its action Commission still has a relatively low impact, hold doubts as to its functionality and have reservations about joining the educational and cultural agendas.

Contrary to the option in the past, this Commission is not explicitly mentioned in the OC, which leads us to conclude that this commission is not included among the groups of the most important ones.

#### Rule 5 (Olympic Solidarity)

The aim of Olympic Solidarity is.

> (…)
> 6. to collaborate with organisations and entities pursuing such objectives, particularly through Olympic education and the propagation of sport. (Emphasis added)

Once again, the contours of Olympic education take priority, as a cement for works out of the CIO, in casu, the operation of the mechanism of Olympic Solidarity. Contrary to past versions of the OC (from 1991 to 1996 ), no mention is made in this rule to the interplay between the Olympic Solidarity and the IOC Commissions, namely the one which deals with Olympic education.

> 32. The symbiosis between education and culture within the Olympic domain was evidenced in Rule 25 of the 1954 Olympic Regulations by the inclusion of the expression, ‘cultural education,’ in the context of the NOC missions.
> 33.Cf. Juan Antonio SAMARANCH, Memorias Olímpicas, Barcelona, Planeta Singular, 2002, p. 131.
> 34.Cf. Beatriz GARCIA, “One hundred years of cultural programming within the Olympic Games (1912-2012): origins, evolution and projections,” in International Journal of Cultural Policy, Vol. 14, No. 4, November 2008, pp. 374-375.
> 35.Cf. Paulo DAVID, Human rights in youth sport: a critical review of children’s rights in competitive sports, London, Routledge, 2005, p. 254.
> 36.Cf. Beatriz GARCÍA, Towards a Cultural Policy for Great Events – Local and Global Issues in the Definition of the Olympic Games Cultural Programme: Lessons from the Sydney Olympic Arts Festivals 1997-2000, PhD Thesis, November 2002, pp. 46-51.
> 37. The Commission for the International Olympic Academy was expressly recognized in the IOC Regulation of 1975, as well as the 1979 and 1980 (Provisional edition) versions of the Olympic Charter, by being in the first place on the IOC Commission’s list, which demonstrated its “leadership.” Additionally, its aims were expressly indicated: to assist the Ephoria set up by the Hellenic Olympic Committee in the choice of its programme and speakers, and to promote the Olympic ideal. It also ensures that reports from the Academy which receive the patronage of the IOC are presented to the IOC.
> 38. Aunque, como acaba de decirse, no hay un numerus clausus de comisiones del COI, la Carta Olímpica contiene algunas previsiones respecto de las más importantes, cf. Carmen CHINCHILLA MARÍN:, Los Juegos Olímpicos: La elección de la sede y otras cuestiones jurídicas, Madrid, Civitas, 2009, p. 130.
> 39. In 1991, the Bye-law to Rule 8 stated as follows: The objectives of the programmes established by Olympic Solidarity are to contribute to: (…) 5. Collaborating with the various IOC Commissions, particularly with the Commission for the International Olympic Academy, the Medical Commission, the Sport for All Commission and the Commission for the Olympic Programme, as well as with the organizations and entities pursuing such objectives, particularly through Olympic education and propagation of sport.

#### Rule 27 (Mission and Role of the IFs within the Olympic Movement)

> (…)
> 1.3 to contribute to the achievement of the goals set out in the Olympic Charter, in particular by way of the spread of Olympism and Olympic education.

Since the 1996 edition of the Olympic Charter (the then Rule 30, paragraph 1.3), the third mission allocated to the IF is Olympic education.

#### Rule 28 (Mission and Role of the NOCs)

> (…)
> 2. The NOC’s role is:
> 2.1 to promote the fundamental principles and values of Olympism in their countries, in particular, in the fields of sport and education, by promoting Olympic educational programmes in all levels of schools, sports and physical education institutions and universities, as well as by encouraging the creation of institutions dedicated to Olympic education, such as National Olympic Academies, Olympic Museums, and other programmes, including cultural, related to the Olympic Movement.

As with the IOC, the primary mission of the NOC goes beyond competitive sport per se. This approach started in 1954, when the Rule 25 of the IOC Regulations clearly underlined that the NOCs are patriotic organisations not for pecuniary profit, devoted to the promotion and encouragement of the physical, moral, and cultural education of the youth of the nation for the development of character, good health, and good citizenship (Olympic education). Several subsequent regulations in the decades of 50 and 60 added that National Olympic Committees should encourage the development of Olympic spirit among the youth of their countries. They should promote a program of education for the public and the press on the philosophy of amateurism. There is a tendency to concentrate too much on performance and new records and not enough on the social, educational, aesthetic, ethical, and spiritual values of amateur sports.

Once again the legislator opts for demanding encouragement and not for mandatory or compulsory actions. This time the word ‘support’ is even absent. Therefore, an NOC seems not to be formally obliged to create an NOA. Moreover, no sanction is provided for NOC’s lack of initiative in this context. The same applies to Olympic Museums and/or cultural programmes.

#### Rule 10 (The Olympic motto)

The Olympic motto, “Citius – Altius – Fortius,” expresses the aspiration of the Olympic Movement.

Since 1966, the OC devotes a specific rule for the Olympic motto which means, “faster, higher, stronger.” The source of the motto was the famous Dominican priest, Henri Didon, a friend of Pierre de Coubertin, prominent educator, and an enthusiastic promoter of school sports in France at the end of the nineteenth century, who believed that the values which must be complied with in life are frequently learnt from sport.

> 40. This motto, introduced in 1981, was adopted by Pierre de Coubertin in 1894.

#### Bye-law to Rules 7-14

> 1. Legal Protection:
> 1.1 The IOC may take all appropriate steps to obtain the legal protection for itself, on both a national and international basis, of the rights over the Olympic Games and over any Olympic property.
> 1.2 Each NOC is responsible to the IOC for the observance, in its country, of Rules 7-14 and BLR 7-14. It shall take steps to prohibit any use of any Olympic properties which would be contrary to such Rules or their Bye-laws. It shall also endeavour to obtain, for the benefit of the IOC, protection of the Olympic properties of the IOC.

There can be no doubt that the IOC and NOC obligation to fight against ambush marketing can be based on a preventive approach, since it creates awareness among the public and potential offenders of the penalties for contravening the laws which protect the brand. Such awareness necessarily involves education, namely Olympic education, by which can be taught what the Olympic symbols, terminology, and images are, and how they may be used.

#### Bye-law to Rule 49

> 1. It is an objective of the Olympic Movement that, through its contents, the media coverage of the Olympic Games should spread and promote the principles and values of Olympism.

The content of this provision claims two different steps of Olympic education: firstly, media officials should have courses of Olympic education before covering the Olympic Games; secondly, they must promote Olympic education for the spectators and readers.

### Suggestions for Improving Olympic Education through Changes in the Text of the Olympic Charter

Bearing in mind the Olympic education framework supra described, in particular, the current problems faced by the IOA and the NOA, we shall now make some modest suggestions of changes that could be included in the OC in order to recognise the role of Olympic education in an integrated and coherent manner.

It would be definitely incorrect and unfair to state that the OC does not give priority and importance to Olympic education. In this context, the suggestions I am going to make do not fill in any supposed lacuna in the OC, or amount to any break with the current version. However, since it can, in fact, be concluded, as we did earlier, that Olympic Education is the cement of Olympism, we think that it is imperative to search for some alterations to the OC in order to give greater recognition to Olympic education, particularly with regard to its institutional framework.

> 41.Cf. IOC Regulations of 1966.
> 42.Cf. Michaela LOCHMANN, “Les fondaments pédagogiques de la devise olympique “citius, altius, fortius,” in Coubertin et l’Olympisme. Questions pour l’avenir, p. 95 and Fékrou Kidané, “The structure of Olympic Movement,” in World Olympians Association: What an Olympian should know – An Olympian is an Olympian forever…, WOA, 2003, p. 24.
> 43. Last updated on the 11th of February 2010.

I am not unaware that some of these suggestions are no more than a suggestion for the IOC Session to reduce to writing some ideas that have already been implemented in practice. In any event, the legal and extra-legal importance of the Olympic Charter demonstrated in the first part of this text lead us to the inevitable conclusion that in the Olympic field, one symbolic rule can be as important as one substantive legal provision. This is why it can make all the difference whether something is, or is not, included in the Olympic Charter. It makes, indeed, a difference whether the appearance of something in a rule is merely inferred or is clearly stipulated.

In the light of the above, I make the following suggestions:

1. To seek, as far as possible, to increase the specificity of the definition of the concepts that are intrinsic to the Olympic phenomenon, such as Olympism, Olympic Spirit, Olympic Ideal and Olympic Education – otherwise these concepts may be understood as a mere transposition to the context of the Olympic Games of concepts that are extrinsic to sport, such as tolerance, respect, ethics, non-discrimination, or as an adaptation to the context of the Olympic Games of concepts that are common to all sports phenomena and are not exclusive to Olympism, such as sporting spirit, fair play, or education through sport. Furthermore, this clarification could even strengthen the specificity of sport in general and of Olympism in particular, in the context of judicial decisions, in the knowledge that the Olympic spirit influenced a recent decision of the Court of Arbitration for Sport in Lausanne, and that sports ethics influenced a recent judgment of the EU Court of Justice, which was based on an anti-doping rule adopted by the IOC;

> 44.Cf. A paradigmatic case occurred in 1981, in the framework of the famous 11th Olympic Congress of Baden-Baden. M. V. RAÑA, in his capacity as President of both the ACNO and the Mexican Olympic Committee (… ) proposed that the IOC institutionalise the association of the NOCs (ACNO) in the IOC Charter and transfer financial and technical responsibility for Olympic Solidarity to the organization over which he presided. This proposal was obviously not a mere whim. The aim was to include an express reference in the Olympic Charter to an existing organisation, not only with a view to the recognition or configuration of its institutional importance, but, above all, with a view to the inclusion of a provision, which would enable the said organisation to receive (more) funds from Olympic Solidarity. Cf. Norbert MÜLLER, One Hundred Years of Olympic Congresses 1894-1994, Special Edition for Participants in the Centennial Olympic Congress, Paris/August/September 1994, p. 179.
> 45.Cf. also the recommendations issued for the XIII Olympic Congress by Sergio CAMARGO, from the Guatemalan Olympic Committee. Among several other recommendations put forward to help promote the development of Olympic Values, we underline the following: (i) A specific rule concerning the International Olympic Academy, its aims and objectives, as well as it fields of action, should be included in Chapter 1 of the Charter and would constitute the legal support for its functioning; (ii) A rule should be included in Chapter 4 of the Olympic Charter, making it obligatory for all National Olympic Committees to have a National Olympic Academy as a permanent body and ensuring that all its objectives and aims for which it is established are fulfilled; (iii) The establishment of the Olympic Academy should also be made an obligatory requisite for an NOC to participate in the Olympic Games, Continental, and Regional Games.
> 46.Cf. Opinion of the Economic and Social Committee on the Proposal for a Decision of the European Parliament and of the Council establishing the European Year of Education through Sport 2004, SOC/092, Brussels, 24 April 2002, CES 516/2002 FR/MEV/nm.
> 47.Cf. CAS 2008/A11622 FC Schalke 04 v. FIFA; CAS 2008/A/1623 SV Werder Bremen v./FIFA; CAS 20081A/1624 FC Barcelona v. FIFA; Decision reached 6 August 2008, Causa Sport 4/2008, p. 388).
> 48.Cf. Judgment of the Court of 18 July 2006, Meca-Medina, Case C-519/04 P, ECR 2006, p. I-6991.

2. To expressly identify the IOA and the NOA as parts of the Olympic Movement. I consider that, as Olympic education is the cement of Olympism, it would make sense for the IOA and the NOA to be considered one of the main parts of the Olympic Movement, as is already the case of the IOC, the NOC, and the IF. If this is not acceptable, a new solution should at least be adopted, which differs from the current position in which the IOA and the NOA are only part of the Olympic Movement when they are recognised by the IOC. Such recognition has already been granted to dozens of organisations, many of which have only a tenuous connection with Olympism;
3. To include the IOC Educational and Cultural Commission within the Permanent IOC Commissions that are expressly identified in the OC , thus giving it the status it deserves – and that was recognised in past OC’s editions – and sending a message both within the IOC and externally as to the substantive and inherently institutional importance of Olympic education. This solution could, as it were, put the Olympic academies “on the map.” Symbolism matters, and if the OC does not make the point, it will be more difficult to change the status quo that is marked by an absence of references to the Olympic Academies in the Bylaws and Regulations of many organisations involved in education through sport and even in Olympic education. This omission has evident practical consequences, e.g. the level of the involvement of the Olympic Academies in inter-institutional co-operation mechanisms is either non-existent or insufficient;
4. To reintroduce at the OC an explicit reference to the educational aspects related to environment protection;
5. To make the consideration of Olympic Education Programmes to be developed by the OGOC as obligatory a criterion for the selection of a city as are the organisers of the Olympic Summer Games, the Olympic Winter Games and the Olympic Youth Games;
6. To take into consideration the pedagogical features of the candidates in the rationale for being an IOC member and for including a sport, discipline, or event in the Programme of the Olympic Games.

> 49. Currently, the IOC has 26 Commissions. The Bye-law to Rule 21 of the Olympic Charter makes express reference just to the following: the IOC Athletes’ Commission; the IOC Ethics Commission; the IOC Nominations Commission; the Olympic Solidarity Commission; the Evaluation Commissions for Candidate Cities; the Olympic Games Coordination Commissions; the IOC Medical Commission.
> 50. One must remember the following text included in the “Information for cities which desire to stage the Olympic Games” (1957): The following requirements have to be met by the Organising Committee: The Olympic Games are a great festival of the youth of the world and the social, educational, esthetic, ethical and spiritual values as well as the athletic features must be emphasized. Cf. also Chistina TING KWAK, “An Olympic Education. From Athletic Colonization to International Harmony,” in Pathways: Critiques and Discourse in Olympic Research. Ninth International Symposium for Olympic Research, Edited by Robert K. BARNEY, Michael K. HEINE, Kevin B. WAMSLEY and Gordon H. MACDONALD, Bejing, International Centre for Olympic Studies, August 5-7, 2008, p. 527 as well as a recent position of the IOC President, Jacques ROGGE: Universities have often partnered the Organising Committees for the Olympic Games (OCOGs) by offering numerous volunteers from among their students, helping to train the OCOG staff and offering the use of their sports facilities. They have thus played an important role in the success enjoyed by the Games, “Preface by the President of the International Olympic Committee, Jacques Rogge”, Olympic Studies Reader Vol. 1, Edited by Hai REN, Lamartine DACOSTA, Ana MIRAGAYA and Niu JING.

2013-11-25T17:31:36-06:00August 5th, 2010|Sports Coaching, Sports Facilities, Sports Management|Comments Off on The Institutional Framework for the Development of Olympic Education and the Role of the National Olympic Academy

National Olympic Academies – National Olympic Committees, Parallel Paths, Intertwined Paths

Dear friends and participants of this 10th Joint Session of National Olympic Academies and National Olympic Committees, it’s a pleasure to welcome you to Ancient Olympia and the International Olympic Academy, at an extremely difficult period for Greece and the international community.

We are all aware of the important role played by National Olympic Committees and National Olympic Academies. In particular, the National Olympic Academies should play a very important role in their respective countries, not only for the education of the youth, but also for the education of sports officials. Our annual meeting, here at the Academy, aims at strengthening an international network of exchange of information and views on the pedagogical orientation we should all follow in order to tackle the problems that the international sports movement faces today. We all know what these problems are, especially those that are predominant: the political and economic exploitation of the sports product, doping, the distortion of the meaning of competition, as well as the inadequate education of young people in the values of Olympism.

If we add to these problems, the world economic crisis and, more generally, the crisis of humanistic values, we have one additional reason to review and redefine the roles that we all have, through the administration of sports and what we offer to society but, above all, through education, since it is education that lays the foundations that will allow us to bring about major changes in our daily life. We have to admit, though, that the seeds of education take a lot of time before they bear fruit. This is why, quite often, societies prefer to choose the easier solution. They prefer to opt for more direct means of propagating behavior models and rules among youth and, in general, among athletes and young people.

But this is the mistake for which we all have to pay, in all areas. The world Olympic and sports family has the duty to persist and to further and support Olympic education. Education takes time before it bears fruit. However, the changes that will take place, eventually, in societies underpinned by a sound education system will be so important that they will lead to the creation of a healthy structure governed by stable rules and humanistic values.

The International Olympic Committee, through its Charter, entrusts to National Olympic Committees the mission of propagating the principles of Olympism in each country. This is a very distinct and extremely important mission.

Each National Olympic Committee, in order to comply with its obligations, cooperates directly or, to be more realistic, I should say, must cooperate with the National Olympic Academy of each country that forms, or to be more realistic once again, I should say, must form an integral part of the NOC’s structure. Even when a National Academy operates outside the IOC’s legal and organizational framework, close cooperation and mutual recognition of the two institutions are a prerequisite for the attainment of their common goal which is the propagation of Olympism in the whole world.

From this rostrum, we have often heard that National Olympic Academies should be independent and self-governing because of the very important cultural value of their mission.

Allow me here to take a stand since my role of President of the International Olympic Academy, the umbrella institution for the individual activities of the NOAs, is extremely sensitive and delicate. The two words we often hear in this hall, “independence” and “autonomy,” might lead to erroneous interpretations.

It is obvious that National Olympic Academies must diligently preserve their independence in order to contribute, in the most efficient way, to the free movement of ideas and opinions and thus facilitate the propagation of the Olympic principles, a task that a technocratic organization like the NOC cannot easily perform nowadays.

Such independence, however, should not be confused with the concept of autonomy in the case of a National Olympic Academy, a concept that can easily be misconstrued, thus leading to the total separation of the Olympic Academy from the NOC. And, in order to be more realistic, for a third time, I would say that this would not be compatible with the objectives and principles of the Olympic Movement.

Admittedly, without the independent forum provided by each National Olympic Academy, the ideas of Olympism would shrink and often lose their meaning, sacrificed on the altar of opportunism. It is, however, also certain that without the NOC’s and the IOC’s organizational and financial support to the National Academy, the role of this educational institution would be reduced and run the risk of losing its real purpose.

For all the above reasons, we should all seek to create an appropriate climate that will enable all National Olympic Academies to find a “modus vivendi” where it does not already exist, a way of coexisting with the NOCs, that will make them stronger and help them protect their independent voices, as well as survive in the vast structure of the Olympic Movement.

Dear friends, the Olympic ideals represent today, more than ever before probably, a pedagogical orientation for world youth that shapes the thinking, the intellectual process, and behavior of the young people on this planet. To achieve this objective, the International Olympic Committee, the International Olympic Academy, National Olympic Academies and National Olympic Committees must coordinate their actions and work together with the view to promoting and preserving these pedagogical values.

These ideas, however, are not enough on their own. As the author Nikos Kazantzakis once said, “There are no ideas – there are only men who carry ideas – and these ideas rise to the level of the man who carries them.”

I want to close this opening address with this phrase and encourage you to reflect once again on what we want our lives to be and our roles and duties towards young people and young athletes. If we can really do something for them, let us do it with generosity since, anyway, our lives too are God’s gift to all of us.

2015-10-30T13:27:28-05:00August 5th, 2010|Sports Coaching, Sports Facilities, Sports Management|Comments Off on National Olympic Academies – National Olympic Committees, Parallel Paths, Intertwined Paths

The Position of the Athlete in the Social Structure of Ancient Greece

Socrates was famous for questions rather than answers. Even his one recorded intervention in Athenian politics was accomplished without a speech or a statement. Socrates was one of five men who were ordered by the Thirty Tyrants to detain Leon of Salamis. The others complied, and Leon was arrested and killed, but Socrates simply went home. He was likely saved from death only by the democratic restoration soon after. We should, therefore, pay all the more attention to what Socrates said on another occasion when his life was on the line, at the end of his trial for corrupting the youth of Athens (among other offences). Found guilty as charged, Socrates faced the death penalty, but had the opportunity of proposing an alternative sentence. He opted (or so Plato says) for the greatest honour the Athenian community could bestow:

>What is a fitting penalty for a poor man who is your benefactor and who needs leisure time for advising you? Nothing is more fitting than free meals for the rest of his life. And he deserves this more than a victor in the two-horse or four-horse chariot race at the Olympic Games. He makes you seem happy, but I make you really happy. And in any case, he does not need free meals, and I do.

This piece of provocation tells us all we need to know about the status of an Olympic victor in classical Athens, and indeed everywhere in the Greek world and at all times. Such a man stood at the furthest extreme from a convicted criminal, from a poor and eccentric criminal in particular. So it was that the wealthy and powerful – kings, tyrants, members of the aristocratic elite – spent enormous sums to raise and buy and race their horses and chariots at Olympia and to pay poets such as Simonides, Bacchylides and Pindar to sing their praises and to commission statues from the leading sculptors of the day. As for athletic victors at Olympia, they earned the same honours Socrates says were given to Athenian equestrians, a lifetime of free meals in the Prytaneion, and also (like them) front-row seats at festivals and even (though this is uncertain) a generous cash bonus; at Sparta, they fought at the side of the kings. Victories at the other Panhellenic games were similarly rewarded at Athens. And while those gained at local festivals might be less prestigious, they were far from negligible nonetheless: likewise commemorated in song and the occasions for statues, they were enumerated in numbing detail in ever-longer inscriptions from all over the Greek world up until the end of antiquity. Only political power surpassed success at Greek competitive festivals as a basis for prestige in ancient Greece. And just as the politically powerful believed such success legitimated and enhanced their position, athletic excellence could amount to a claim to political power in itself.

Of course, not every athlete was successful, and none won every time out. Was there a social cachet in participation itself? Pindar writes of three wrestlers who were defeated at the Pythian games at Delphi in the mid fifth century: ‘They ran home to their mothers/They slunk through the back alleys, separately and furtively/painfully stung by their loss.’ This may remind us of Reece Bobby in Talladega Nights: ‘If you’re not first, you’re last.’ There is no credit here for merely taking part. But then Pindar’s main concern is to flatter Aristomenes, for whose glory he writes, and stressing the height to which the wrestler’s win has elevated him serves that strategy. Some later inscriptions do present athletes as having competed worthily, notably, conspicuously, in a manner worthy of victory, at important festivals – but not actually winning. At the same time, Christians and gladiators, men (and women) on the margins of ancient society or mired in its lower depths, seek to represent themselves as athletes. There is nothing like this evidence earlier, and it may be viewed as a sign of a change in attitude, of a new regard for athletic competition itself and for those who practice it.

But we should be cautious about this conclusion: athletic activity was always informed by an elite ethos, even in democratic Athens. The competitive program comprised contests of strength, speed, and skill essentially unchanged from those which engaged Homer’s elite heroes. It was inherited from a milieu in which individual excellence mattered more than cooperation in a group; though tribal competitions involving team events (a boat race, perhaps a tug-of-war) were features of local festivals like Athens’ Panathenaea, they were restricted to citizens alone and never became part of the great Panhellenic festivals. It’s worth adding that most other events reserved for Athenians at the Panathenaea involved horses and that the festival, celebrated though it was in a radical democracy, featured more horse and chariot races than athletic contests. These were of course available only to the rich; and this is probably true, though to a lesser extent, for such team events as the tribal torch races. It is likely that these elite overtones always made competitive activity something to be proud of and display.

Here’s an example: The fourth-century BCE orator and politician, Aeschines, was sensitive about his family background. Demosthenes, his rival, liked to depict Aeschines’ father as a lowly schoolmaster, his mother as the devotee of an outlandish cult, his brother as ‘a painter of alabaster boxes and tambourines.’ Aeschines’ own account admits his father’s poverty, but claims that he had competed as an athlete in his youth. Similarly, his brother is said to have spent his free time in the gymnasium. And Aeschines himself lards his speeches with references to the lifestyle choices of the rich and famous, athletics prominent among them, and with suggestions that he too partakes of such pastimes. These links with athletics are clearly meant to establish Aeschines’ credentials as a member of the elite. He repays Demosthenes in the same coin, denying that his supporters include those who exercise along with him. ‘He hasn’t spent his time hunting wild boars or cultivating bodily vigour, but in hunting down men of property.’ It is left to Plutarch, centuries later, to mount a defence: Demosthenes’ guardians defrauded him of his father’s estate – he was, therefore, too poor to indulge in athletic activities – and he was besides sickly. Certainly ancient athletes made no effort to conceal their activities, readily identifiable as they were from their heavy musculature (there were no weight classes for boxers, wrestlers and pancratiasts , and they gorged themselves on meat to bulk up), their close-cropped hair (wrestlers and pancratiasts didn’t want to give their rivals a grip), their bodily vigour. (Aeschines says that this allowed Athenians to recognize those who exercised even if they didn’t visit the gymnasium themselves.) In later antiquity too, athletes flaunted their status, younger ones sporting the cirrus, the topknot which distinguished them from more experienced competitors.

We may say, then, that competitive success brought both esteem and more tangible rewards and that athletic activity and its trappings were always socially respectable and worth showing off. Athletics could thus enhance the social status of even the elite. Did sport also allow many Greeks of more humble origins to improve their social standing? Here we cannot be so certain.

Plutarch offers the following account of the origins and early career of Eumenes, later secretary to King Philip II of Macedon and ruler of Cappadocia.

>Duris says that the father of Eumenes of Cardia was a poor man who worked as a wagoner in the Thracian Chersonese; nevertheless, Eumenes got a liberal education in literature and athletics. While he was still a boy (Duris goes on), Philip visited and took the time to watch Cardian youths practicing the pankration and boys wrestling. Eumenes was so successful a wrestler and so clearly intelligent and brave that Philip, pleased, had him join his retinue. But I find those who say that Eumenes was favored by Philip on account of friendship with his father to be more plausible.

Two versions. As so often, we cannot say which (if either) is true. It is clear that Duris, a younger fourth-century contemporary of Eumenes, thought it unusual for a poor wagoner’s son to get training in athletics, but that he did not regard this as impossible, and that athletic ability, even among boys, could plausibly catch the eye of a king and lead on to fortune. Yet Plutarch (writing perhaps four hundred years later) is not convinced.

This divergence of opinion neatly mirrors modern debates on the class backgrounds of ancient Greek athletes. Learned and lively books by E.N. Gardiner and H.A. Harris popularized the view that archaic Greek sport was marked by the love of competition for its own sake. The great Panhellenic festivals were the crowning glories of this spirit of amateurism because their well-born winners were satisfied with a wreath as a reward; prizes of value and the predominance of lower-class professionals who wanted to win them were (allegedly) later developments, causes of corruption and symptoms of decline. But this picture was ‘conceived by partisans of the nineteenth-century Anglo-American amateur movement.’

Gardiner, Harris, and the many who followed them supplied ancient precedent to legitimize, consciously or not, the ideology of the modern Olympic Movement, committed from the outset to restricting competition to a leisured elite. We now realize that there were no amateurs in antiquity.

The decline of the ideology of amateurism has thus made it easier to recognize the role that money and other material benefits always played in Greek athletics. But another element of the world conjured up by Gardiner and Harris – the early monopoly of aristocrats and their displacement by poorer competitors – remains controversial. David Young has pressed the case for the involvement of poorer athletes from the earliest days of organized festival competition in Greece, pointing to a cook, a goatherd, and a cowherd among early Olympians. Unfortunately, our information on these athletes usually dates from many years after their deaths, and is seldom self-explanatory. Was Coroebus, the first Olympic victor, a cook or a cult functionary involved in sacrifice? Is the designation influenced by its source, himself a cook in a work of fiction, Athenaeus’ Deipnosophistae? Certainly the humble but unnamed Olympic victor in one of the many anecdotes designed to show Diogenes’ disdain for convention is invented for the sake of a pun: he is said to be ‘tending sheep’ (probata nemonta) so that the Cynic philosopher can jeer at his quick transition from Olympia to Nemea. And the anecdote about Glaucus of Carystus, recognized as a pugilistic prodigy when he beat a ploughshare back into shape with his bare hands, is another story too good to be true. (A very similar tale is told of the discovery of the baseball slugger, Jimmy Foxx; this time it can be proved to be a fabrication.) It is significant that Aristotle (perhaps writing as a contemporary) notes that one such Olympic champion, a fishmonger, was exceptional.

We may also wonder how poorer athletes could afford the time and expense of training and travel to competitions; these were greatest at Olympia, not only distant and hard to reach but requiring athletes to spend thirty days on the site before competition began. Cities might honour victory and even recruit champions – one likely explanation for the fact that Crotoniates won twelve of twenty-seven Olympic stadion races for men between 588 and 484 and once made up the first seven finishers. But they were less willing to subsidize competitors before their success. Though it is often said that Greek cities began to support athletes in the early Hellenistic period, the evidence usually referred to, in fact, reveals the initiative of private individuals, and there is no reason to think that the athlete in question is poor. We cannot gauge the extent of such private subsidies. In one instance, from Egypt, the athletes whose training is supported may be slaves – poor enough, but also outside the usual ambit of Greek festival competition.

Young argues that poorer boys might win local events – natural ability would count for most at this age – and use their earnings to finance careers. This view has won adherents, Nick Fisher among them. It is true that Athens’ Panathenaea offered substantial prizes for athletic victors who were boys or ageneioi, ‘beardless youths,’ perhaps the equivalent of $50,000 today for the boys’ stadion race. Yet few local games can have been as generous as the Panathenaea, itself on offer only every four years; other prizes we know of were paltry by comparison. One indication: about 300 BCE, a coach approached the city council of Ephesus for funds to help a young athlete train and make a festival trip. The boy had already won at least one victory — and yet, it seems, had not earned enough to compete abroad without help. Furthermore, local games with valuable prizes attracted entrants from afar. If we are to judge from the findspots of Panathenaic amphoras, many were won by outsiders. In fact, attracting them might be a priority, important enough for an ex-archon to seek the emperor Septimius Severus’ assistance when athletes passed by the Panhellenia at Athens in the early third century of our era. Visiting victors included boys too: an inscription from the early second century BCE lists more foreign boys among champions at the Panathenaea than native Athenians. Among local competitors, better-off boys could afford more food and the private trainers Pindar praises. As for public trainers, paidotribai, the Athenian ephebate in which they played an important part is attested only from the later fourth century and may not have included the thetes, the poor majority of the population; its Hellenistic descendant was an unequivocally exclusive institution. Young has certainly established the possibility of poorer athletes taking part in archaic and classical competition, but we cannot say that their involvement in any significant numbers was probable. And in fact, though we know the names of quite a few Athenian athletes – Don Kyle’s catalogue lists 116 as certain or possible — there is none whose career follows the trajectory he lays out.

The proportion of elite and other athletes at later periods is beyond our reach and likely to remain so. We know of many athletes whose careers were studded with distinctions – multiple citizenships, magistracies, priesthoods, service on embassies. Do these testify to their origins among the elite for which such honours were usually reserved? Or are they the consequences of victory? We can rarely be sure. There can be no question about the elite status of those who joined athletic victories to success in equestrian competition (such as Sosibius, a major figure at the Egyptian court and Aratus, the Achaean leader of the late third century BCE). Family connections often offer a clue. The wrestler, Hermesianax, whose father and uncle contributed towards building a wall at Colophon about 300 BCE, must have come from a family with means. A series of inscriptions permits us to trace the progress of L. Septimius Flavianus Flavillianus of Oenoanda. This appears to follow the model put forward by Young: he enjoyed significant success at local festivals and went on to win five Panhellenic crowns before returning home for the Meleagria in the early third century of our era. But, in fact, his was no rags to riches tale: his father was a regional official, his aunt, an aristocrat who proudly carved her family lineage onto her tomb.

An important but puzzling piece of evidence is Artemidorus’ discussion of dreams in which a mother gives birth to an eagle. In a poor family, this portends a son who will rise in the ranks to command a military camp; among the rich, an emperor. A third boy, from the moderate or middling class, will become a famous athlete. What does Artemidorus intend by metrios here? Clearly not the top stratum of the population of the Roman Empire. H.W. Pleket understands the term to include the most successful artisans and intellectuals, doctors and lawyers, as well as members of local councils who did not hold high office. However, it is possible that the group he has in mind extends as high as the ‘curial order,’ the local elites of the many small and medium-size cities of the Roman east, who had not yet produced claimants to the imperial throne in Artemidorus’ day, the late second century of our era. Almost all the known victors in the Meleagria at Balboura in Asia Minor in the mid second century of our era belonged to such prominent local families. So too did those at Oenoanda, where ‘the social status of the local participants was high,’ and so too at Aphrodisias, Aezani, throughtout Lycia, among the winners at the Plataean Eleutheria. Nor were these well born athletes runners or pentathletes only, as has sometimes been suggested, shunning the dangerous and disfiguring combat events. It is pancratiasts who make up far and away the largest number of identifiable xystarchs, the leaders of athletes’ associations in the imperial period.

Were there no athletes from outside the elite? Certainly there were. We may adduce third and second century victors in local contests at Sicyon, who make up a group quite distinct from the wealthy citizens who contributed to fund-raising campaigns. Among individuals, we may point to an Olympic champion in pankration in the early second century of our era, whose cognomen, Domesticus, hints at servile origin for his family, and an Egyptian boxer and priest of an athletic guild, nicknamed ‘the dummy,’ who was illiterate. Phorystas of Tanagra, victorious herald at an unspecified ‘noble contest of Zeus’ in the mid third century of our era, triumphed elsewhere with his ‘winged feet’. Is he another athlete of (at least relatively) humble origins? As does Nigel Crowther, I accept that such heralds (and trumpeters too) were likely to be of lower status than other competitors at Panhellenic festivals. Unlike him, however, I regard the reference to ‘winged feet’ as a reference to speaking without stopping for breath, not to athletic competition: we can’t count Phorystas. A fragment of Plutarch speaks of a certain Nicandas, a Boeotian contemporary and a shoemaker, who had nevertheless spent some time at palaestrae. But there is nothing to say that he used whatever he learned there in festival competition.

Examples there are, then, of poorer athletes, but there are not so many that we can talk (as Don Kyle does) of the ‘democratization’ of the Olympics. On the contrary, it is best to accept the conclusion of Pleket, the most thorough investigator of the social status of Greek athletes in later antiquity: ‘From Pindar’s time until Roman Imperial times, members of the upper class were never absent in sport (neither in the running events nor in the body-contact sports).’ And indeed, though victors were eager to claim distinctions of every kind, as first of their city or among Ionians to win an event, or first of all competitors to win in three age classes, or twice on one day, none advertises himself as the first of his family or social class. If ancient athletes did rise in social status through their success in competition, they weren’t eager for their contemporaries to find out. As a result, they are hidden from us as well.

### References

Bartels, J. (2004) ‘Zwischen Adelsprivileg und Massenphänomen. Sport und griechische Gesellschaft,’ in Bartels et al., eds, Sportschau. Antike Athleten in Aktion (Bonn) 7-17.

Fisher, N. (1998) ‘Gymnasia and the democratic values of leisure’ in P. Cartledge et al., eds, Kosmos. Essays in Order, Conflict and Community in Classical Athens (Cambridge) 84-104.

Gardiner, E.N. (1910) Greek Athletic Sports and Festivals (London).

Golden, M. (2008). Greek Sport and Social Status (Austin).

Harris, H.A. (1964) Greek Athletes and Athletics (London).

Hubbard, T. (2008) ‘Contemporary sport sociology and ancient Greek athletics,’ Leisure Studies 27: 379-93.

Kyle, D.G. (1987) Athletics in Ancient Athens (Leiden).

Kyle, D.G. (1997) ‘The first 100 Olympiads: a process of decline or democratization?,’ Nikephoros 10: 53-75.

Mann, C. (2001) Athlet und Polis im archaischen und frühklassischen Griechenland (Göttingen).

Pleket, H.W. (2001) ‘Zur Soziologie des antiken Sports,’ Nikephoros 14: 157-212.

Pritchard, D. (2003) ‘Athletics, education and participation in classical Athens’, in D.J. Phillips and Pritchard, eds, Sport and Festival in the Ancient Greek World (Swansea) 293-349.

Young, D.C. (1984) The Olympic Myth of Greek Amateur Athletics (Chicago).

2013-11-25T17:36:14-06:00August 3rd, 2010|Sports Facilities, Sports Studies and Sports Psychology|Comments Off on The Position of the Athlete in the Social Structure of Ancient Greece
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