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The historiography of 'associative gymnastics' has mostly focused on the ways individual countries used gymnastics in education and in the military and to build patriotic fervour. In contrast, scholars have paid little attention to the early internationalization of gymnastics in Europe and beyond. The present paper draws on original research, notably in the archives of the Swiss Gymnastics Federation and the Olympic Studies Centre, to examine the process by which Switzerland's model of 'federal' gymnastics festivals spread throughout Europe from the 1860s onwards and gave rise to intense exchanges (documentation, official delegations, competitors) between the national federations that were emerging at the time. This process, together with the work of Nicolaas Jan Cupérus, from Belgium, helped pave the way for establishing the Bureau des Fédérations Européennes de Gymnastique (BFEG), whose foundation historians traditionally trace back to a meeting in Liège in 1881. Analysis of the BFEG's early history revealed the main issues (apoliticism, secularism, amateurism) and tensions (nationalism vs. internationalism) that accompanied its development. Its relationship with the newly founded International Olympic Committee and the modern doctrine of Olympism also had a profound impact on the BFEG and its decision to create a true international gymnastics tournament. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Although badminton has been played in New Zealand for approximately 150 years it has received only minimal attention in scholarly discussions of sport. This paper evaluates the historical development of badminton in New Zealand between 1870 and 1939. It argues that from the last quarter of the nineteenth century badminton was initially played alongside games such as croquet and tennis in mostly private venues as a form of upper-class recreation. It then gained a wider appeal primarily as a winter sport that could be played by tennis players during the off-season. During the interwar period it was promoted as a suitable form of recreation for women because it was non-contact and believed to be not overly strenuous. Although its construction as a useful winter sport for tennis players and a suitable game for women helped badminton achieve a position as a niche sport, such characterizations hindered its further development because it was seen as a supplementary sport to tennis, the then dominant racket sport in New Zealand. Moreover, in comparison to its contemporary racket sports badminton was often criticized as an inferior game. Accordingly, it occupied a somewhat ambiguous place in New Zealand's sporting hierarchy. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Sambo, an acronym commonly derived from the Russian Samozashchita Bez Oruzhiya (self-defence without weapons), is a Soviet created grappling martial art noted for its assortment of painful holds, heavy throws, and take downs. Originally part of a secret military training syllabus with roots in judo, the sport was officially adopted by the USSR All-Union Sports Committee in 1938. Throughout the Cold War period, Soviet sambo slowly inserted itself into the wrestling halls and martial arts dojos of the United States, capturing the attention of American judoka and wrestlers. Sport sambo arrived in the United States at a time in which the Cuban missile crisis remained fresh in the memories of the citizenry while young Americans were being drafted to fight communists in the Vietnam war. Though Cold War tensions had cooled somewhat compared to the days of McCarthyism, the Soviet-US rivalry continued to colour public discourse, permeating every facet of American society. This paper breaks new ground in Western scholarship by analyzing the reception of sambo in the USA during the 1960s and 70s by the professional martial artists and athletes, in the lead up of the 1980 Olympics against the political backdrop of the Cold War. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article provides a comprehensive historical overview of the development of DanceSport in China from 1864 to 2023. It delineates three distinct periods: foreign enlightenment (1864–1949), tumultuous exploration (1949–1986), and rapid flourishing (1986–2023). The introduction of DanceSport in treaty ports like Shanghai in the late nineteenth century laid the foundation. The standardization reforms of the 1920s accelerated its popularity among elites. After the founding of the People's Republic of China, DanceSport was transformed ideologically and spread from elites to the masses. The Cultural Revolution brought a total ban. With Reform and Opening up, ballroom dance resumed and began integrating with international standards as DanceSport. Since the 1990s, the competitive, artistic, educational and gender interaction aspects have rapidly grown through organizational development, talent cultivation, and innovation. The article analyzes the patterns, challenges and turning points across the historical progression. It provides a scholarly insight on the localized evolution of a global sport in China amidst broader political, social and cultural transformations. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Migrants are often characterized as in search of new homes, while spectator sports are frequently spoken of as providing homes for the followers of particular teams. However the particular kinds of 'homes' that spectator sports can provide for migrants is understudied. This paper explores the sporting 'homes' found by those who migrated from Italy to Australia after the Second World War. In particular it examines the different experiences of those who found a home in the mainstream sport of Australian Rules football with the more culturally peripheral sport of Association football (soccer). Drawing on 59 oral history interviews with first and second generation migrants to the Australian cities of Melbourne and Sydney, the paper provides a window into the meanings, passions, exclusion, inclusion, intergenerational tensions, and intergenerational bonding that these migrants found in, and created through, Australian Rules football and soccer. Both sports facilitated entry into particular territorial worlds in Melbourne and Sydney. Yet while those who followed Australian Rules football went to away games with throngs of Anglo-Australians, soccer provided access to a more hidden, peripheral, and more European parts of Melbourne and Sydney which were yet to be celebrated for their multicultural ethnic diversity. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The paper draws attention to free time activities in the Polish countryside after 1945. In pre-war rural worldview, every action in which the element of household usefulness was absent, was valued negatively, and considered to be laziness. Growing spatial mobility of village dwellers and changing attitudes towards work on farms resulted in depreciation of land as superior value. This shift together with industrialization and positive valuation of urban culture brought new patterns of spending time in the countryside. Traditionally, ‘Neighbourhood sit-ins’ - a kind of zone of pleasure and fun, situated on the border between the spheres of work and active rest - have been transformed into something totally different. The emergence of radios, TV sets, and pop culture meant that group meetings were focused on content entirely separate from work. In my article, I would like to examine the intersection of two domains of leisure in post-war countryside, time of community, associated with relaxing meeting, spontaneous fun on the one hand and organized time of the youth on the other. Another major issue I would like to discuss in my paper is emergence of private spare time and its perception by village dwellers. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

It is important to question the relevance of sport history and to recognize our failings and our successes if we are to ensure the genre develops and contributes to society. While sport historians recognize the value, outside of this sphere, it is apparent that the subject is not always recognized for its significance. In this paper, it is argued that sport historians have a responsibility to engage more with the media and the public, while seeking opportunities to collaborate with sports organizations to ensure the subject is relevant and can develop. It is also argued that minority groups are under-represented in the sport history community, arguing that it is incumbent upon sport historians to ensure greater engagement and promotion of these groups. The paper concludes by urging those engaged in sport history to promote the discipline and develop opportunities for others. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Sociology and history are intimately related to each other and cannot be clearly separated or isolated from each other which resonates with a Māori view of time (the past, present, and future are not distinct entities) and realms (the spiritual and human in particular). This paper uses pūrākau and storytelling to explore how haka performed by strong women in tribal narratives, in Māori contexts, and in women’s rugby creates a more nuanced understanding of the embodied discourses associated with intersecting identities (gender, race, ethnicity, class) in and around the sport of rugby union. As a Māori woman, heavily invested in the sport of rugby union, how did the words and actions of Māori women from my past influence my present and my future and how was this embodied and experienced through haka? In particular, my 10 years as a member of the New Zealand women’s rugby team and my understanding of the histories or pūrākau (tribal stories) of strong women in te ao Māori (the Māori world) inform this paper. This will help to illustrate how history and sociology are intimately connected and highlights how intersecting stories told through time, from different perspectives can influence key learnings in sport. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

The history of disability sport is an emerging field. However, much of the work in this area has tended to focus on celebratory accounts of the Paralympics. Accordingly, what is needed are histories that focus on the experiences of individual athletes that avoid the trope of positioning them as ‘tragic’ figures rescued from lives of misery. At issue are narratives of empowerment, progress and agency. This paper responds to this challenge with a ‘pre-history’ of formal wheelchair sporting contests in the Australian state of Victoria. By following the stories of two people who would become, among other things, paraplegic athletes in the 1950s and beyond, it provides a rare local story of the individual, medical and sporting worlds that came together to provide the foundations for the development of formal wheelchair sport. While the narrative of this paper has elements of the traditional celebratory tale of progress, it also points to the agency of the individuals and to the complexities of the medical worlds that they encountered – worlds that could hinder, as well as help facilitate, their recovery. As such this paper also provides something of an exploratory meeting place between the history of sport and the history of medicine. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

This paper examines the historical social contribution of Australian football clubs, and the extent of this as evidenced through Annual General Meetings (hereafter referred to as AGMs) during the period 1890–1910. Australian football club AGMs were an important part of the administration process where the committee would report to members on the performance of the club. These AGMs were highlighted extensively in local suburban newspapers. Results show that suburban newspaper narratives did reinforce that AGMs were more than merely formulaic procedural sessions that reported financial and team performance, but that they also reinforced the social and entertainment aspects of Australian football. The paper contributes and extends arguments about the social importance of Australian football, through AGMs, for which little prior research exists, and suggests that this should be made more prominent when the histories of clubs are examined. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In this paper, we explore the interface between the construction of disability and the culture of the United Arab Emirates (UAE) with a focus on the implications that these have on the provision for Paralympic sport. Despite the previous literature that has investigated the relationship between sport and the Arab world, there is a significant void at the intersection between disability and sport within the Arab community. This paper uses a Foucauldian lens to unpack the relationship between the concepts of disability and Arab culture and how these are linked to Paralympic ethos. To achieve this aim, this paper uses virtual ethnographic methods. The internet is a flexible tool often understood as a cultural artefact which is socially constructed and a technology that was produced by particular people which contextually situated priorities. It is also a technology which is shaped by the ways in which it is marketed, taught and used. We believe the internet integrates with traditional cultures therefore providing a greater understanding and continual observation of Paralympic sport in the UAE. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Salvador López Gómez was a great exponent of gymnastics in Spain in the nineteenth and the twentieth century. His role as a teacher, a writer and even as a law developer who promoted gymnastics deserves a detailed study. For that reason, through primary sources of this era and, specially, papers from López Gómez himself, this paper depicts his long professional career, his conception of gymnastics and the constant efforts, not always properly rewarded, that he made for its social respect and acknowledgement during that time. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

For over 140 years, Australian Rules football has been one of the most popular sporting pastimes in the rural south west of the Australian state of Victoria. Yet, the meaning and impact of this football code in regional Australia remains relatively uncharted. This paper begins the process of redressing the gap by examining recollections of the emergence of the sport in south west Victoria produced in the late 1930s by a writer with the pen-name 'Old Eaglehawk'. These nostalgic reminiscences touched on broader issues including masculinity, race, rural pioneers, and colonial violence, which shaped both the game locally and the region more broadly. Central to Old Eaglehawk's articles was the sentiment that pioneers of the region were exemplars of white Australian masculinity whose influence benefitted not only football, but the south west region more generally. As a result of such influence, local football was perceived as a space that cultivated traits that white rural pioneers were celebrated for, such as discipline, toughness, and resilience. But a deeper examination of Old Eaglehawk's articles suggests that the largely elided frontier violence perpetrated by Australia's pioneers also permeated the game at a local level. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

After the exhibition on the sporting image of women in the Olympic Museum in Lausanne, Switzerland in 2003, the CESH (European Committee for Sport History) organized a symposium in 2007 on sport and art. Many researchers from all over Europe attended it. But in France, few sports historians work with sport and art. The general purpose of this article is to provide a historiographical overview of the work of French sports historians who have attempted to include both art and sport in their research. After categorizing the studies, we focus on the materials and methodologies used by French researchers. The challenge of this paper is to show French historians that, when they incorporate art into their study, they will be able to characterize the evolution of sport differently and, in doing so, bring forth new issues worthy of study. We will also present an inventory of as-yet-untapped art sources for sport in France. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The leading journals in the history of sport publish book reviews which are a longstanding and visible feature of the discipline. Indeed, some journals allocate almost as much space to reviews as to scholarly articles. In this article I analyze and evaluate the contributions that book reviews make to the production of knowledge and to building disciplinary and social cohesiveness in the field. Following Pierre Bourdieu, I argue that book reviews play important roles in communities of professional scholars and the way that members position themselves and engage with, relate to, and judge one another. I illustrate this with a case study of 271 book reviews published in Sporting Traditions (the official journal of the Australian Society for Sports History) between 1984 and 1995. The case study yields two particularly relevant conclusions. First, the level of historiographical analysis presented in book reviews is typically minimal with rigorous, detailed and perceptive analyses uncommon. Second, most reviewers adopt mitigating strategies to temper or dilute their criticisms. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Rugby is a sport frequently considered to be highly competitive and even violent. In the history of South Africa under apartheid it was a bulwark of white minority, authoritarian, nationalist rule. So was it possible for an alternative masculinity to develop and express itself on the country’s rugby playing field? This paper seeks to answer this question by examining an informal weekly game of touch rugby played in the five years prior to the unbanning of the liberation movements in 1990. The game was played largely by white men who were explicitly opposed to the system of apartheid and in most cases were actively working for its termination. What implications did their commitment to a non-racial democracy have for their participation in the game and particularly for their gendered relations? This paper argues that there was an alignment between their politics and their gendered behaviour but that such alignment was not exact and even though alternative masculinities were nascent, equally were expressed conventional passions for the game. But these passions were not violent or misogynistic even as they endorsed the male body as a site of physical sporting pleasure. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

This paper looks at how the Gaelic Athletic Association (GAA), Ireland’s largest sporting organization and one perceived as nationalist in outlook, reacted to the republican hunger strike that took place within the H-Blocks prison in Northern Ireland in 1981. Using the official records of the GAA (some of which remain classified), newspapers and having conducted interviews with key people from the period, the paper investigates how GAA members and units reacted to the hunger strike, the pressure that was placed upon the governing bodies of the GAA to publicly support the aims of the hunger strikers and the affect the hunger strike had on the GAA. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The sport industry is an emerging industry in China. The aims of this paper are to explore the history of China’s sport industry policies and to reveal existing problems and their causes in these policies. In this qualitative research, documentary analysis and in-depth interviews of 15 interviewees were conducted. It is concluded that the history of sport industry polices in China has undergone roughly four stages: budding (1978–1992), exploration (1992–1998), integration (1998–2008), and developing (2008 onwards). The Chinese sport industry policies have experienced numerous problems. First, the policy goals are hollow, unspecific, and undefined. Second, the policies lack pertinence. Third, their value standard deviates from the constraint condition. Fourth, they lack continuity and stability. The complicated reasons for these problems include factors related to the sport management system, the policy value orientation of government, and the interest game between stakeholders throughout the policy process. This paper, therefore, presents suggestions for China’s sport industry policies. First, the sports market should be opened gradually. Second, the government should increase policy support. Third, the government should support and regulate the development of professional sports. Fourth, the government should promote the construction of a national and local sport industry base. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

Aboriginal perspectives on experiences in sport in Canada are largely missing from the existing body of literature on sociocultural aspects of sport, but this is especially the case in terms of Aboriginal people from the Maritimes region of Canada. Such an absence impedes our understanding of sport as an important cultural institution that can be used to normalize certain social practices, as well as challenge them. In this paper, we aim to contribute to the body of knowledge on Aboriginal sport by examining the lived experiences of nine elite Aboriginal athletes from the Maritimes, specifically those who won a Tom Longboat Award, through a postcolonial lens. In doing so, we reveal some of the nuanced power relationships that shaped their involvement in organized, competitive sport – distinctions that are not often addressed in the scholarly literature and thus limit our understanding of the complex and sometimes difficult realities of Aboriginal sport development in Canada. The participants’ stories tell us a great deal about the recipients as individuals, about Aboriginal peoples’ involvement in contemporary sport, and how the ways in which they negotiated difference within sport marked their lives. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper involves a search for interracial entanglements in South African sport and considers how these experiences may be narrated. The paper comprises three sections. The first provides an overview of traditional narratives of apartheid and apartheid sport that focus on race as a perpetual marker of social division. The second section shifts attention to the gaps, blind spots, mistakes, paradoxes, ironies, anomalies, ambiguities and invisibilities in the structures of apartheid that allowed for racial encounters and entanglements. The paper concludes with a discussion about the methodological and political implications of incorporating racial entanglements into narratives of apartheid sport. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Since their arrival in the late nineteenth century, Lebanese immigrants have come to play an important role in Ghanaian society, especially in commerce. In community development, however, their influence is considered to be less salient, and therefore it is less researched. The present paper tries to fill this lacuna by focusing on the Mandela Soccer Academy, which was established in 2012 in Ghana by Mohammed Issa, a Lebanese-Ghanaian entrepreneur. The paper argues that Issa’s hybrid identity is reflected in his vision for the Mandela Soccer Academy, and is central to understanding children’s experiences there. The functioning and vision of the academy reflect an attempt by Issa to expose the academy’s children to cosmopolitan messages that he believes will broaden their horizons and improve their prospects. At the same time, the academy provides him with an opportunity to bolster the social collateral of the Lebanese in Ghana. The paper explores the ways in which the academy has become a juncture of translocal cultural production that transcends national boundaries, and assesses the extent to which the children have embraced Issa’s worldview. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Globalization spearheaded professionalization and commercialization of sports, which has contributed and elevated sport labour migration out of Africa. People move far from their home base to improve their standards of living, form new identities, and to enhance national pride, which enabled many African men and women involved in elite sports to become an integral part of global sport competitions. This paper investigates factors that influenced the migration of athletes/players out of Eastern Africa and to understand their transnational experiences in a global context. The World System Theory, transnationalism and neoclassical theoretical perspectives guided this research in broad and specific contexts. Data sources included research journal articles, public government documents, theoretical and philosophical papers, newspapers, and internet documentaries that provide stories about sport migrants individually and as a collective group. Themes emerging from this study focus on the following: (a) patterns of migration, (b) factors that spearhead movement of sport migrants out of Eastern Africa and (c) transnational experiences with exemplifications. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper examines key ways in which ideas such as ‘tradition’, ‘authenticity’, and ‘history’ are deployed in discourses around Asian martial arts. First introducing how such concepts are used in national contexts such as Korea and elsewhere in East Asia it then examines the case of a dispute between two English language writers on martial arts. It examines these different cases to illustrate the ways that ‘tradition’, ‘authenticity’, and ‘history’ can be deployed for different ideological ends, from nationalism to personal self-advancement, in different contexts. In doing so, the paper theorizes the consequences of antagonisms that have recently arisen between common beliefs about certain Asian martial arts and historical studies that challenge such beliefs. It concludes that the discursive status of ‘history’ is not fixed or permanent, but varies depending on context. This is the case to such an extent that the status of ‘history’ can be said to have changed decisively. Ultimately, the paper argues for the value of rigorous scholarship even when it runs counter to cultural beliefs, and highlights the significance of such scholarship for showing the ways in which martial arts history matters in more contexts and registers than martial arts alone. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper presents a case study from my research as part of a local and community history of the Spit Amateur Swimming Club, which began at the Spit Baths on the lower north shore of Sydney, Australia, in 1917. It reveals some of the tensions involved in writing feminist oral sport history and the ways in which shared authority can be negotiated between historians and sportswomen when writing a community sport history. Competitive male and female Spit swimmers were segregated into separate clubs, swam in different baths and at different times until the mid-1960s. The paper uses feminist oral histories of the Spit’s female swimming champions in order to trace the ways in which swimming and its historical meanings have changed for women in twentieth-century Australia. It reveals the lack of cultural scripts local female swimming stars could call upon to narrate their life stories and sporting success, the different ways in which they want their lives remembered and how historians might approach the complex construction of these histories. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The year 1921 has been recognized by scholars as an international peak and turning point in the history of women’s football. From peak activity and record crowds in the years immediately following the Great War, the popularity of women’s football declined rapidly in the years thereafter. This paper takes the circumstances of a women’s Rugby League initiative in Sydney as a departure point for exploring from a cross-code perspective this international peak. It examines how various international, multi-directional influences between and across the codes conditioned the rapid emergence of 16 women’s football initiatives throughout Australasia in 1921. The second part of the paper then seeks to shed light on the 1921 turning point. It does so by examining the only comparable ban in the Antipodes to the English Football Association’s (FA) ban on women using their playing fields in 1921: being a ban by the New South Wales Rugby League (NSWRL) on a women’s match in Sydney. It maps a range of threats that the NSWRL may have perceived a women’s competition as posing to the stability of the men’s game. In doing so, it raises questions that may have bearing on future investigations of the FA’s ban. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Until recently, Australia's cricketing past has been coloured by an anglocentric bias. Australian cricket writers, players and administrators mainly have deemed Australian series with subcontinental countries of much lesser importance than Ashes contests. In surveying Australia's cricketing relations with the subcontinent from the 1880s until Australia's first fully fledged official tour of the region in 1959–1960, this paper seeks to redress this imbalance. The paper explores how initial cricketing relations were viewed within the prism of Australia's traditional cricketing ties with England. This did not alter with India's attaining official Test match status in the 1930s. Australian tours of India were confined to unofficial teams, and it was not until 1947–1948 that the first official exchange occurred. As this paper documents, the importance of subcontinental cricket tours increased after the war, as both Labor and Liberal Coalition governments encouraged the use of cricket to foster diplomatic ties at a time of increasing decolonisation and when Indian and Australian external relations were ideologically opposed. The governments' efforts were not fully supported by many Australian cricketers and administrators. While some, such as the Australian captain Ian Johnson, embraced cricketing diplomacy, many of his colleagues coloured these new cricketing worlds with old Australian prejudices. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Copyright of International Journal of the History of Sport is the property of Taylor & Francis Ltd and its content may not be copied or emailed to multiple sites or posted to a listserv without the copyright holder's express written permission. However, users may print, download, or email articles for individual use. This abstract may be abridged. No warranty is given about the accuracy of the copy. Users should refer to the original published version of the material for the full abstract. (Copyright applies to all Abstracts.)

This paper addresses a major blind spot in the history of Australian sport by investigating women's participation in sport with relation to social class. This is a question that has been largely overlooked in the current literature on the history of women's sport, but stands out as an issue deserving of further attention. The paper considers whether the obstacles faced by Australian sportswomen have been irrespective of social class and status, or if working-class women faced a double burden of both gender and economic barriers to sporting activity? Drawing upon an in-depth examination of sport and identities in an inner-city working-class Australian suburb, the paper examines and analyses the sporting experiences of local women in the early part of the twentieth century. Based on an extensive evaluation (and critique) of the local, city and sporting press and local histories, the paper argues that not only did working-class women have far fewer opportunities to participate in sport than their working-class male counterparts, but that they also had much less access to sport than middle- and upper-class women. It concludes that issues relating to class were the most significant deterrent to sporting involvement amongst local women. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Sport is one of the most important phenomena in Portuguese contemporary life. Yet, in the late twentieth century, there were more historical studies about antique clocks and potatoes than on sport. Portuguese historians ended up successively underrating its place in history, placing sport in a kind of scientific (semi)periphery, with political history becoming the core of the matter. Sport, however, is an extremely important element in any serious attempt to reconstruct contemporary history, popular culture and what it means to be Portuguese. This paper analyses the history of the Portuguese historical writing and academic research on sport history, also its emergence, development, and contemporary position in the historiography of a (semi)peripheral country, in a comparative way with the Centre. The concept of (semi)periphery is employ to describe both the situation of sport history in Portugal and the Portuguese (sport) historiography in the international context. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Ethnic sport offers an important and understudied lens into how newcomers - a key population on the social peripheries - negotiate their entry into host societies. Canada was among the top countries to receive European migrants after the Second World War. Soccer participation and fandom were a gateway in their resettlement and an axis for community formation, identity expression, economic advancement, and personal pleasure. This paper explores what four decades of ethnic soccer on the peripheries of post-war Toronto reveals about the local organization of immigrant life and the European newcomer’s mediated entry into English Canada. It demonstrates that Toronto soccer fans were sufficient in number and electoral voice to transform the urban politics of leisure and organization of social diversity, even as their leisure activities were still heavily contained by host institutions. Paradoxically, soccer’s straightjacketed role in Toronto as an ethnic social adhesive and platform for identity expression rendered it largely irrelevant to the general, more settled population, while its capacity to articulate ethnic differences made it a force and symbol of English Canada’s re-imagination as a multicultural society in the 1970s. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The Basques are a nation living in the Basque Country - a territory that is divided between two states - France and Spain. Isolated in the mountainous terrain they have preserved their original culture and collective identity. However, they still need to struggle for recognition, using some elements of their own culture to promote their identity and reject their status as a peripheral region of Spain or France. One of such elements is sport, especially so-called ‘traditional sports’ which this nation has preserved over centuries. The aim of this paper is thus to analyze one example of such a sport - Basque ball and its historical and present situation, connections with other elements of culture and its socio-cultural importance for the Basques. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper examines the post-war history of speedway, the ultimate provincial sport, comparing its development in Britain and Poland. On the basis of a variety of sources, including specialist press reports from both countries, interviews with former speedway riders, both academic and non-academic publications, and Internet fan forums, a narrative of the relationship between the Polish and British speedway worlds is built. Through this narrative the author explores speedway’s peculiar economic vulnerability, and the reasons why the sport has lurched from one seeming crisis to another in both countries, as well as the shared geographical phenomenon that the strongholds of the sport have moved from the metropolis to medium sized towns. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Resource towns (such as lumber camps, power plants, and mining towns) are by their very nature peripheral. They frequently exist in a space of isolation, not only geographically but also culturally as well. The South Island mining town of Kaitangata is a classic example of this process - an industrial, working class, and heavily migrant community positioned within an otherwise agricultural, conservation, and homogenous tract of rural New Zealand. Kaitangata, in the words of one writer, ‘possessed a unique character and pattern of social interaction’ that marked it out from its immediate environment. One way in which these differences manifested themselves was in the sporting activities of the town. In a part of the world where rugby union held absolute hegemony, the town broke the mould by also fielding teams in association football, rugby league, and even Australian Rules football (distinguishing itself as the only town outside of the provincial capital of Dunedin where these three sports obtained a foothold). This paper analyses how these sporting activities contributed to a unique sense of space, addressing themes including class, ethnicity, masculinity, and identity. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper analyses the development of automobile sport in Yugoslavia, using it as a specific lens on the Yugoslav society and political system. Focusing on races on the track of the Belgrade Grand Prix of 1939, which new socialist authorities used for propaganda purposes until the late 1950s, the ‘national class’ competition as the first professional competition in the country, and the Soviet-style Sutjeska Rally, my analysis shows that automobile sport in socialist Yugoslavia featured a variety of characteristics of both ‘capitalist’ and ‘communist’ sport. This contradictory situation included parallel existence of many ‘isms’ – ‘amateurism’ and ‘professionalism’, ‘nationalism’, ‘unitarianism’, ‘propagandism’, ‘commercialism’, and many more. Being in a constant flux between these opposite pairs, automobile sport in Yugoslavia clearly reflected many of the contradictions of the Yugoslav state system. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

Copyright of International Journal of the History of Sport is the property of Taylor & Francis Ltd and its content may not be copied or emailed to multiple sites or posted to a listserv without the copyright holder's express written permission. However, users may print, download, or email articles for individual use. This abstract may be abridged. No warranty is given about the accuracy of the copy. Users should refer to the original published version of the material for the full abstract. (Copyright applies to all Abstracts.)

This paper aims to interrogate the key policy factors behind South Korea’s archery success. Based on our review on the history of Korean archery, two additional key elements in terms of organization and administration were also included to form the analytical framework of this research, aside from Green and Houlihan’s four key policy elements. Our analytical framework is thus comprised of two background elements for elite sport development – the organizational structure and administration, and four areas of elite sport policy. According to our analytical framework, this paper highlights four key policy dimensions that have influenced South Korea’s archery success, as follows: (i) establishment of the Korean Archery Association (KAA) and the involvement of business elites; (ii) emergence of potential full-time archers by the identification of, and the support for, young talented athletes; (iii) developments in sport science, coaching, and facilities/equipment; and (iv) the provision of more systematic competition opportunities for elite-level archers. In summary, the success of Korean archers might be closely linked to the result of the KAA’s staunch strategy and policy initiatives encouraged by the government for international sporting success and the way in which the organization has paid more salient attention to the policy commitments as noted above. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper examines the use of elite disability sport by the Chinese Government to promote disability sport and to establish a disability culture and social environment in the Republic of China from 1983 to 2012. Bearing in mind that earlier Chinese society did not perceive the international disability movement as an educational process, the paper begins with an interpretation of why elite disability sport received the government’s strong support when it was introduced to China, and considers its policies in the context of the government’s possible political motivations. It then examines the elite disability sport system in order to understand operational practices that were used to achieve success. It is concluded that the support of the government is the key to elite disability sport success. This was especially the case when the China Disabled Persons’ Federation underwent intensive development, maximizing the use of resources. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper examines the confluence of global, regional, and national politics in the lead up to the 1991 Pan-American Games hosted by Cuba. Cuba’s contentious selection as host was wholly underpinned by the international politics of the time. Once selected, the preparations for the Games in Havana were surrounded by an unprecedented domestic economic crisis fueled by shifts in global politics. This paper analyzes how international politics informed the hosting of the 1991 Pan-American Games, and shaped the political challenge the Cuban government faced in hosting such an event. The Revolution’s use of sport domestically and internationally came to the forefront in its efforts as host and the results of those efforts proved to be providential given the emerging political economic contexts during and in the ensuing years after the Games. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Copyright of International Journal of the History of Sport is the property of Taylor & Francis Ltd and its content may not be copied or emailed to multiple sites or posted to a listserv without the copyright holder's express written permission. However, users may print, download, or email articles for individual use. This abstract may be abridged. No warranty is given about the accuracy of the copy. Users should refer to the original published version of the material for the full abstract. (Copyright applies to all Abstracts.)

This paper explores the history and development of China's sports industry, along with its achievements, prospects, problems, and dilemmas, beginning with the implementation of the reform and opening-up policy. The paper concludes that China's sports have been gradually transformed from a type of public welfare under the planned economy to a business under the market-oriented economy since the implementation of the reform and opening-up policy in 1978. China's sports industry has gone through three stages, i.e. the exploratory stage (1978–1992), the formative stage (1993–1996), and the development stage (1997–present), and has achieved remarkable progress since the reform and opening-up. This has made the sports industry a new and significant economic growth point in China, constituting a sunrise industry of the twenty-first century. Despite the huge potential, the further development of China's sports industry is still faced with a series of problems and dilemmas, such as its unbalanced development, the lack of independent innovation, shortcomings in the policies and regulations of the industry, and the poor management system(s). [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper explores the career of the Irish Olympian Pat O'Callaghan. He won successive hammer-throwing titles in the 1924 and 1928 Olympics as a representative of the independent Irish state. The paper argues that in these Olympics, O'Callaghan can be considered as representing a postcolonial state, in line with much scholarship on other aspects of Irish culture. However, the Irish later fell into a dispute with the International Amateur Athletics Federation and the International Olympic Committee, which were largely steered by the British in dealing with contentious issues over the Irish border, and the Irish were thus effectively banned from the 1936 games. The paper concludes with a discussion over the nature of postcolonial identities in sport, and the complexities around the issue in relation to the constant mediation over what national identities mean within the context of rule-making by international sporting bodies. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

Physical culture, sports and politics had a strong interrelation between 1848 and 1945. Political identities – in other words, political values and principles – of all political parties from the right to the left wing characterised the activities of sports clubs. The Turnvereine (gymnastics clubs), alpine clubs and ski clubs, which are presented in this paper, are only three examples of many. This paper is a local case study and focuses on these interrelations in western Austria, more precisely in Vorarlberg and the western parts of the Tyrol, especially the Arlberg region. The three types of sports are covered in chronological order of the foundation of their clubs: turnen (gymnastics), mountaineering and skiing. The description of the political influences on turnen and mountaineering during the nineteenth century helps to understand the development of skiing in the inter-war period and in the 1940s. The main focus is on skiing. Besides the political influences on skiing, this paper also describes the fates of the famous ski pioneer Hannes Schneider and his Jewish friend Rudolf Gomperz. This helps to examine the interweaving of sports and politics in western Austria. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper highlights the value of images and materiality associated with sport in the past, and explores the range of sociocultural practices associated with them. It provides a critique of the neglect of such sources by many historians and notes that interest is now substantially growing in visuality and visual material. It emphasises the huge breadth and depth of sports-related evidence that can now be accessed, from stamps to stadiums and from posters to sports paraphernalia. It then examines the multiplicity of methodologies that can potentially be used to exploit the visual, its sites of production and sites of reception and seeing. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper provides a comparative analysis of European gymnastics systems in the nineteenth century against the context of today's World Gymnaestrada, the purely non-competitive, official world event of the International Gymnastics Federation. Framed by the central question ‘Who did what kind of gymnastics for which purposes?’, the paper discusses the original purposes, issues of participation and key principles of several gymnastics systems in nineteenth-century Europe. The paper particularly addresses not only two major gymnastics concepts emerging at that time, namely German Turnen and Swedish gymnastics, but also their adoption and adaptation in Denmark and the Czech region. This comparative, historical analysis provides valuable insights into the essence of the largely under-researched World Gymnaestrada in general, and into one of its core aims, specifically, namely the celebration of the diversity of gymnastics. In spite of dramatic social change, there seems to be a rather stable core in this respect. Yet, different from the original ideas of the nineteenth century, at today's World Gymnaestrada, the different gymnastics concepts are no longer the object of political struggles, but they are celebrated and complement each other. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

Previous work on female participation in Australian Rules football has highlighted the seemingly discontinuous character of the women's game as it spread from Western Australia to Victoria during the period of the Great War. In this paper, an overview of the current literature on the topic is provided, and there is a focus on hitherto ‘missing links’ in the existing sequence of events – the knowledge of which has the potential to create a more integrated narrative of the code. In particular, the photographic, filmic and textual evidence for matches of women's football played in South Australia during the Great War is discussed. These games, with proceeds directed to such charities as the ‘Workers' Memorial Fund’ as well as ‘comforts for the Anzacs’, attracted sizeable crowds and were sometimes played under the patronage of the governor of the state, the mayor of Adelaide and senior military officers. The paper concludes with a reflection on how the availability (or unavailability) of particular digitised sources, and the serendipitous nature of research itself, can have a problematic influence on investigations associated with marginalised sports such as women's football. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

The Australian Services cricket teams of both WWI and WWII played an important role in the immediate post-war period. A number of the players involved went on to forge successful Test cricket careers. This paper mentions the exploits of some of the players involved in these matches with particular focus on Cecil (Cec) Pepper. Cec Pepper represented the WWII Australian Services Team with distinction during the exhausting schedule of matches played in England, India and Australia from June 1945. However, in the match between the Australian Services Team and South Australia played at the Adelaide Oval over the Christmas–New Year period of 1945/1946, Pepper was involved in a controversial incident with the South Australian captain Donald Bradman and umpire Jack Scott. The incident and its subsequent ramifications were to have a huge impact on Pepper's cricket career. Pepper should have been in contention as a future Australian Test player. Instead, his career took another direction completely. This paper discusses Pepper's career and traces further links between the three Adelaide protagonists, Bradman, Scott and Pepper. A comparison is also made between Cec Pepper and other Australian spin bowlers of the era. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

Measuring the impact of sports experience as preparation for war, and especially leadership in war, is open to debate. Accordingly, this paper is intended to highlight the role that sport played in New Zealand's effort in the Second World War and the way in which sport prepared some of those who would have positions of command in the structure of the Second New Zealand Expeditionary Force. The paper explores the realisation of the Commander of the New Zealand Division in the war, General Bernard Freyberg, that he needed to reshape his command by utilising younger, more durable, officers to cope with the more mobile methodology of the German war machine, especially after the military disasters that occurred in Greece and Crete. By concentrating on a particular soldier, W. N. ‘Bill’ Carson, a double New Zealand cricket-rugby representative, it is intended to show that sport was capable of providing the sort of life experiences that could prepare him for command and the need to adapt under extreme pressure by utilising the exposure to both success and failure in sport to cope with what were for him unique demands of battle. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

Copyright of International Journal of the History of Sport is the property of Taylor & Francis Ltd and its content may not be copied or emailed to multiple sites or posted to a listserv without the copyright holder's express written permission. However, users may print, download, or email articles for individual use. This abstract may be abridged. No warranty is given about the accuracy of the copy. Users should refer to the original published version of the material for the full abstract. (Copyright applies to all Abstracts.)

This paper is a personal account of the author’s interest in the field of sports history and its emergence in Argentina. It explores several prejudices and misunderstandings that have contributed to a limited and partial vision of this scholarly discipline. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

More than six decades after the end of the Korean War (1950–53), the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea (DPRK) and the Republic of Korea (ROK) continue to face each other across the highly fortified Demilitarized Zone (DMZ) along the 38th parallel on the Korean peninsula. Both Korean governments continue to maintain and reinforce a pan-Korean identity amongst its respective populations. At the same time, both states need to provide its respective citizens with distinct national identities, which obviously requires a politically difficult and highly delicate balancing act. The focus of this paper is on the dominant identity discourses in South Korea. These have been observed, interpreted and analyzed in five international events and festivals that the South hosted over the last three decades: the 1988 Seoul Olympics, the 2002 Soccer World Cup (co-hosted with Japan), the Busan Asian Games in the same year, the 2011 Daegu World Athletic Championships and the 2014 Incheon Asian Games. All these events offered a distinctive nationalist flavour, celebrated tradition and modernity, and emphasized South Korea’s rapid 20th century development and achievements, but also served as a reminder of the ethnic homogeneity of the divided Korean people and the unjust political division of the Korean peninsula. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]