Prologue: The Genre of Sport as a Means to an End

IF 0.8 4区 教育学 Q1 HISTORY
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引用次数: 2

Abstract

In April 2001, I had the privilege of interviewing Pedro Ramı́rez Vázquez, chairman of the organizing committee for the 1968 Olympic Games in Mexico City. I ended the interview by recalling my own memories of the games, as a 12-year-old watching the events on a black-and-white television in England. For me, four salient moments stood out: Bob Beaman’s record-breaking long-jump; Dick Fosbury’s revolutionary technique in the high-jump; the raised fists of the African-American athletes; and, being British, the unforgettable commentary of David Coleman, as he saw David Hemery home to victory in the final of the men’s 400 metres hurdles. Expecting a positive reply, I asked if he was pleased that the majority of my recollections were of great sporting moments. He replied with a blunt ‘No’. Although he understood why I remembered what I had, he said that what the organizing committee had wanted above all else was for the world’s audience to remember Mexico. [1]. Bearing Ramı́rez Vázquez’s words in mind, this collection asks what Mexicans hoped to achieve by hosting the games and what image of Mexico they sought to portray. In doing so, it considers what these aspirations reveal about the nature of Mexican society 50 years after the Mexican Revolution (1910–17); a destructive civil war that was credited with having ended class privileges and ethnic tensions, and that had led Mexicans towards a bright future in which all its citizens had a stake. The 1968 games provided a rare opportunity for the nation to demonstrate such advances to a world-wide audience. It also presented an opportunity to separate substance from rhetoric and reveal the true extent of progress in post-revolutionary Mexico. Mexico’s bid to host the Olympic Games could hardly have come at a more contentious phase in international relations. As Cold War politics went, the 1960s was a particularly chilly period. The construction of the Berlin Wall, the Bay of Pigs fiasco and the Cuban Missile Crisis were all fresh in the minds of International Olympic Committee (IOC) delegates as they descended upon Baden-Baden in October 1963 to consider the candidates bidding for the 1968 games. In the years that followed, President John F. Kennedy and Malcolm X would be assassinated; the Vietnam War would escalate to new heights; Ernesto ‘Che’ Guevara would be killed trying to export revolution to Latin America; and European colonialism would enter terminal decline as former African territories took on new names and new leaders and embarked on new disputes with their neighbours. In the year of the games themselves, Soviet tanks rolled into Prague; the streets of major European and US cities were filled with students who dared to ‘take on the system’; Martin Luther King The International Journal of the History of Sport Vol. 26, No. 6, May 2009, 711–722
前言:体育作为达到目的的手段
2001年4月,我有幸采访了1968年墨西哥城奥运会组委会主席佩德罗·拉姆莱兹Vázquez。采访结束时,我回忆了自己对奥运会的记忆,当时我12岁,在英国的黑白电视上观看比赛。对我来说,有四个突出的时刻:鲍勃·比曼打破跳远纪录;迪克·福斯伯里跳高的革命性技术;非洲裔美国运动员举起的拳头;作为英国人,大卫·科尔曼令人难忘的解说,当他看到大卫·赫梅里在男子400米栏决赛中获胜时。我期待着得到肯定的回答,于是问他,我回忆的大部分都是伟大的体育时刻,他是否感到高兴。他直截了当地回答说“不”。虽然他理解我为什么记得我所带的东西,但他说,组委会最希望的是让全世界的观众记住墨西哥。[1]. 在ramir ā rez Vázquez的话的启发下,这个系列询问墨西哥人希望通过举办奥运会达到什么目的,以及他们想要描绘什么样的墨西哥形象。在此过程中,它考虑了这些愿望揭示了墨西哥革命(1910 - 1917)50年后墨西哥社会的性质;这场破坏性的内战被认为结束了阶级特权和种族紧张关系,并将墨西哥人引向了一个所有公民都有利害关系的光明未来。1968年奥运会为中国提供了一个难得的机会,向全世界的观众展示这种进步。它也提供了一个机会,将实质与修辞区分开来,揭示革命后墨西哥进步的真实程度。在国际关系中,墨西哥申办奥运会正处于一个极具争议的阶段。随着冷战政治的发展,20世纪60年代是一个特别寒冷的时期。1963年10月,当国际奥委会(IOC)的代表们来到巴登-巴登考察1968年奥运会的候选城市时,柏林墙的修建、猪湾事件的惨败和古巴导弹危机都记忆犹新。在接下来的几年里,约翰·f·肯尼迪总统和马尔科姆·艾克斯被暗杀;越南战争将升级到新的高度;埃内斯托·切·格瓦拉在试图向拉丁美洲输出革命时被杀害;欧洲殖民主义将进入最终衰落,因为前非洲领土有了新的名称和新的领导人,并开始与邻国发生新的争端。在奥运会举办的那一年,苏联坦克开进了布拉格;欧美主要城市的街道上挤满了敢于“挑战体制”的学生;马丁·路德·金:《国际体育史杂志》,第26卷,第6期,2009年5月,711-722页
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来源期刊
CiteScore
0.80
自引率
33.30%
发文量
85
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