An analysis of historical formation of Workers` Olympic Games (1894-1925)

• Grant number: 15/16568-1
• Support Opportunities: Regular Research Grants
• Start date: January 01, 2016
• End date: December 31, 2017
• Field of knowledge: Humanities - History
• Principal Investigator: Sérgio Settani Giglio
• Grantee: Sérgio Settani Giglio
• Host Institution: Faculdade de Educação Física (FEF). Universidade Estadual de Campinas (UNICAMP). Campinas , SP, Brazil

Abstract

This research project aims to analyze the historical aspects of the genesis of the Workers` Olympic Games. Until the 1920s, the Olympic Games organized by the International Olympic Committee (IOC), kept workers away from the competition through the motto of amateurism and the "Olympic spirit". To ensure the presence of the aristocrats, the IOC as opposed to professional athletes, who were paid, valued the idea of love of the sport and the practice of sports as a member of free time. Workers in the fight against discrimination and for not believing in the values proposed by the IOC organized their own Olympic competition from the Socialist Worker Sport International (SWSI). The theoretical and methodological approach that guides this work will be a review of the Olympic Bulletin archives (1894-1925) and documents of the Labour and Socialist International Archives (1923-1925). This research aims to articulate two axes: on the one hand, the foundation and early years of the IOC formation as determinants of a responsible policy to set the direction of sport in the world; and on the other hand, the emergence of the workers sports movement that questioned the model proposed by Pierre de Coubertin, founder of the Olympic Games. It is expected that the analysis of this tension between the IOC and workers provide elements to understand how SWSI faced the dilemma between keeping the original plans of its creation or approach the sports model of which were critical. (AU)

Scientific publications

(References retrieved automatically from Web of Science and SciELO through information on FAPESP grants and their corresponding numbers as mentioned in the publications by the authors)

GIGLIO, SERGIO SETTANI. Honour and Dignity: The Peru Case at the 1936 Olympic Games in Berlin. INTERNATIONAL JOURNAL OF THE HISTORY OF SPORT, v. 34, n. 11, p. 1128-1139, 2017. (15/16568-1)