Abstract
The word ‘amateur’ - as has been acknowledged only intermittently during its comparatively brief history - refers simply to someone who does something for the love of it. The notion of the ‘amateur’ has always been central to Olympic history and to the philosophy of Olympism, even though the administrative application of the word was debated within the Olympic movement for much of the 20th century and Olympism itself was continually redefined in the process. The formal pursuit of amateurism was effectively abandoned by the International Olympic Committee in the 1980s but amateurism remains, as an indispensable myth, at the heart of the Olympic project. This chapter considers the progress of this myth historically in relation to Olympic politics.
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© 2012 Stephen Wagg
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Wagg, S. (2012). Tilting at Windmills? Olympic Politics and the Spectre of Amateurism. In: Lenskyj, H.J., Wagg, S. (eds) The Palgrave Handbook of Olympic Studies. Palgrave Macmillan, London. https://doi.org/10.1057/9780230367463_21
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1057/9780230367463_21
Publisher Name: Palgrave Macmillan, London
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