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SCHAUS, GERALD P. AND STEPHEN R. WENN, EDS. Onward to the Olympics: Historical
Perspectives on the Olympic Games. Waterloo, Ont.: Wilfred Laurier University Press, 2007.
Pp. vii+376. Endnotes and index. $65.00.
Onward to the Olympics is the proceedings of an ancient and modern Olympic history
conference held in Waterloo, Ontario, Canada on October 3-4, 2003, sponsored by The
Canadian Academic Institute in Athens and Wilfred Laurier University with the partici-
pation of the International Centre for Olympic Studies at Western Ontario University, the
University of Guelph and the University of Windsor.
The majority of the book (215 pages) concerns itself with topics associated with the
ancient Olympics, “Part I: The Olympics in Antiquity.” The section contains papers pre-
sented by 11 scholars on various topics on the ancient Olympic games. Nigel Crowther
puts the study of the ancient games in perspective by exploding the myths surrounding the
Games in an overview of the topic, “The Ancient Olympic Games through the Centu-
ries.” He shows how even the ancient historians, such as Strabo, questioned the numerous
stories and legends concerning the birth of the Olympic games, reminding us that the
“agon,” or struggle, was the root of all Greek sport. He reinforces the fact that they were
not games of gentility and peace as the founders of the modern Games would have wanted
us to believe, and that it was Pierre de Coubertin who manipulated the legend of the
ancient Games to fit his own sporting and political agendas.
Other scholars in the section expand on this theme in papers reminding us to ques-
tion and analyze ancient sources and not take them at face value. In the process many
myths and theories are debunked. Paul Christesen (“The Transformation of Athletics in
Sixth-century Greece”) presents evidence for the beginning of Greek sports to the sixth
century B.C. Crowther once again attacked the ideological myths of the ancient Games
(“The Ancient Olympics and Their Ideals”) stating there was no attempt at international
understanding and that they furthered “nationalistic tendencies” and commemorated war.
The late Victor Mathews, a member of the conference’s organizing committee who passed
away shortly after the conference and to whom this book is dedicated, presents an interest-
ing paper (“Olympic Losers: Why Athletes Who Did Not Win at Olympia are Remem-
bered”) on how we know of the Olympic losers when the Games were only interested or
concerned with winning. David Gilman Romano explores the selection and training of
the judges at the Ancient Olympics, the Hellanodikai, in “Judges and Judging at the
Ancient Olympic Games.” The simple task of allotting athletes places in athletic competi-
tions, assigning lanes in races, etc., can reflect society and the values and practices of that
society. Aileen Ajootian chose this simple, but greatly ignored, subject in “Heroic and
Athletic Sortition at Ancient Olympia.”
Donald G. Kyle analyzes the question as to whether females, virginal or otherwise,
viewed the ancient Games, in one of the strongest and most interesting papers “Fabulous
Females and Ancient Olympia.” A preeminent expert on ancient sport, Kyle systemati-
cally and clearly showed that it was highly unlikely that even virgins were permitted to
watch the ancient Olympic games, a popular concept prevalent in the current study of
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ancient Olympia. Another highly respected expert on ancient sport, Hugh M. Lee, ex-
plains how the long jump was contested (“The Halma: A Running or Standing Jump?”).
The Canadian Academic Institute in Athens conducts the archaeological excavations
at Stymphalus in northeastern Arcadia. Gerald P. Schaus investigated the relationship of
this small village with the Olympic Games in “Connections Between Olympia and
Stymphalus.” From being the site of Herakles’ fifth labor, the killing of the Stymphalian
birds, which was represented on one of the metopes of the Temple of Zeus in Olympia, to
being the home of an Olympic victor, Hagesias, victor in the mule chariot race at the78th
Olympiad (468 B.C.E.), the importance of a village being connected to Olympia is exam-
ined.
A transition from the ancient section to the modern is provided by Robert Weir’s
article, “Commemorative Cash: The Coins of the Ancient and Modern Olympics.” If
there is a theme in the Ancient Olympics section it is through the studying the small
aspects of the games, what some would consider insignificant minutiae not worthy of
study, we learn not only about the Games and sport, but of ancient society because they
reflect the characteristics of each other, as the modern Games do today’s society.
The second part of the book, concerning the modern Olympics, is the shorter of the
two sections at 137 pages, including endnotes. However, the brevity of the section does
not reflect the quality of scholarship presented. Overall, articles are insightful and mean-
ingful.
Robert K. Barney gives a good basic historical introduction to the modern games to
set the mood. Part A of the second section addresses the modern Olympics before World
War II. Jim Nendel discusses the cultural implications of the Olympic participation of the
Hawaiian Duke Kahanamoku. The article gives a good biographical look at Kahanamoku
but does not provide supporting evidence for the racism and strife Nendel claims
Kahanamoku faced during his life. It would have been stronger article with more substan-
tial facts on this aspect of Kahanamoku’s life. I kept waiting for it to surface, but it never
did.
Barney and Anthony Bijkerk write an interesting article on Danish architect Jan Wils’
possible influence on Carl Deim’s concept of flame relay for the 1936 Berlin Olympics.
Wils created the 1928 Olympic Stadium which had as its main feature a tall tower on
which burned a caldron during the games in Amsterdam. The article was extremely inter-
esting but left you wanting more. Barney is talented at finding small interesting facts that,
when explored in more depth, shed light on larger topics in Olympic history. One ex-
ample is his exhaustive study into the development and use of the three-tiered victory
podium that was created for the 1932 Lake Placid Winter games but became standard use
at nearly all individual sporting events. This article with Bijkerk is of merit but too short
and could be expanded into a more in-depth study of the use of the flame before the
creation of the relay. There is no mention of the 107-foot tower that was added to the Los
Angeles Coliseum for the 1932 Olympics Games that also held an Olympic flame, or
“Olympic Torch” as the 1932 Official Report called it, or that stadium’s possible influence
on Deim, or Wils’ influence on the architects of the 1932 “Olympic Torch.” Whereas this
article does bring up an interesting hypothesis on a possible influence on the creation of an
Olympic tradition it could easily be turned into a larger project.
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In “The Great Progression: A Content Analysis of the ‘Lake Placid News’ and the
“Los Angeles Times’ treatment of the 1932 Olympics,” Jonathan Paul studies how both
“hometown papers” covered the Games in their own cities before and during the event.
The problem with the study is that one newspaper is a major national newspaper while the
other is a small local publication which is seldom read outside the hamlet of Lake Placid.
Whereas it is interesting I question the value of restricting the research to these two papers.
It would be fascinating to see if other papers in the country covered the winter games as
much as the summer Olympics, thus seeing them as having some significant value.
The second section of part two concerns “The Olympics After World War II.” The
first article, “Womanizing Olympic Athletes: Policy and Practice during the Avery Brundage
Era,” by Kevin Wamsley, is one of the most thought-provoking articles in the book. He
points out that women’s Olympic sports increased with the entrance of the Soviet Union
in the Olympic games in 1952 and flourished during the Cold War with the East/West
rivalry. The increased support and development of women’s sports in the West was in
direct response to the Eastern Bloc’s efforts to build strong women’s teams, and that previ-
ous attempts to increase women’s Olympic involvement, mainly from future IOC presi-
dent Sigfrid Edstrom, then head of the IAAF, were based on political motivations rather
than benevolent concerns.
Courtney Mason addresses the apartheid question in “The Bridge to Change: The
1976 South African Apartheid Policy and the Olympic Boycott Paradigm.” Well researched,
Mason concludes that the African boycott of Montreal “not only generated international
consciousness for the anti-apartheid movement against South Africa, but also indirectly
induced social and political change.” An excellent history of the paralympic movement is
presented in David A. Greig’s “Splitting Hairs: The Struggle between the Canadian Fed-
eral Government and the Organizing Committee of the 1976 Torontolympiad concern-
ing South African Participation.” In “Juan Antonio Samaranch’s Score Sheet: Revenue
Generation and the Olympic Movement, 1980-2001” Stephen R. Wenn and Scott G.
Martyn provide an exceptional overview of the development of the marketing strategies of
the IOC which provided financial stability for the Olympic movement. This article alone
is a must read for any course on sports marketing and modern Olympic history.
The final segment of the book, comprised of two articles, deals with “The Future of
the Olympic Games.” Both are, in part, an appreciation of the work of one of the fathers
of modern Olympic historical research, John A. Lucas of Penn State University whose
1992 book was entitled The Future of the Olympic Games. In the first article, “Olympic
Ideals: Pragmatic Method and the Future of the Games,” Tim Elcombe suggests a more
pragmatic view of Lucas’ book. He concludes that if we do not see history as “‘an unend-
ing continuum,’ as Lucas suggests, cherished institutions such as the Olympic games may
change in ways that challenge their durability and narrative appeal.”
The book’s final article, Mark Dyreson’s “To Construct a Better and More Peaceful
World, or ‘War Minus the Shooting?’: The Olympic Movement’s Second Century,” ad-
dresses the paradox that the Olympics held out hope for a better world, yet also served as
a “war minus the weapons.” He compares the games to a “revival of a classical Greek
tragedy, and warns that unless the IOC adapts to changes in society the games risk the
same fate as World Fairs and could suffer “a swift fall from public favor.”
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As mentioned in the beginning of this review, these articles were the result of an
academic conference on Olympic history held in 2003. Seldom are proceedings published
in their entirety and available to the public, and when they are the cost is prohibitive. As a
consequence those not attending the conference are not exposed to the research and con-
cepts presented. Schauss and Wenn, and Wilfred Laurier University, show that conference
proceedings can be reproduced in an affordable and professional manner and thus help
the body of knowledge on the subject. This book is a valuable resource of fresh original
research and scholarship and can help to fill the missing pieces of Olympic history.
—RUSTY WILSON
Ohio State University
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