Abstract
From the earliest Olympic Games, the bodies of skaters and swimmers were gendered, raced and sexualized, with media coverage playing a key role in these processes. Debates about appearance, attire and comportment are central to questions of identity construction and the swimming and skating body. The Gay Games provide a compelling case study of a counter-hegemonic sporting event, and reveal some of the contradictions in Olympic sport.
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Notes
R. Cashman, Barrackers’ Corner: A Rejoinder to a “One-Eyed” Review of Staging the Olympics, Sporting Traditions 18:1 (2001), 127–9.Cashman was reacting to Douglas Booth’s well-argued critical review of Staging the Olympics (co-edited with Anthony Hughes) in an earlier issue of Sporting Traditions.
Cited in C. Colwin, Breakthrough Swimming (Champaign, IL: Human Kinetics, 2002), 14
see also P. Hoose, Necessities: Racial Barriers in American Sports (New York: Random House, 1989), 70.
Colwin, 3.
Swimsuits: A Hundred Years of Pictures (Washington DC: National Geographic Society, 2000).
Swimwear Historical Timeline, GlamourSurf web site, http://www.glamoursurf.com/swimwear_timeline.html
Interview with Nikki Dryden (Toronto, May 14, 2012).
Randwick City Council historical exhibit, Come in for a Swim: Mina Wylie, Bowen Library, Maroubra, New South Wales (May–October, 2012).
S. Scott, How to Look Good (Nearly) Naked: Regulation of the Swimmer’s Body, Body & Society 16:2 (2010), 143–68.
Ibid., 143.
M. Stell, Half the Race: A History of Australian Women in Sport (North Ryde, NSW: HarperCollins, 1992), 159; Come in for a Swim.
Australasian Olympic team 1912 photograph, New South Wales State Library, in Come in for a Swim.
Nurmi quoted in Stell, 108.
Interview with Nikki Dryden.
Ibid.
When I began researching these issues in 1990, there were very few sources. The most important was Donald Lackey’s study of sexual harassment experienced by female athletes at the hands of male coaches in American college and university sport
see D. Lackey, Sexual Harassment in Sports, Physical Education 47:2 (1990), 22–6.
F. Hong, Innocence Lost: Child Athletes in China, Sport in Society 7:3 (2004), 342.
C. Breckenridge, Spoilsports (London: Routledge, 2001).
Swimming’s Touchy Issue, Sydney Morning Herald (September 20, 2003); S. Meacham, Too Close for Comfort, Sydney Morning Herald (October 18, 2003), 36; R. Yallop, Intimacy and Betrayal, The Australian (October 23, 2003).
Swimming’s Touchy Issue.
K. Volkwein, Sport and Ethics in Unified Germany–A Critical Analysis, in R. Barney and K. Meier (eds), Proceedings of the First International Symposium for Olympic Research (London, ON: University of Western Ontario, 1992), 55–66; Colwin.
Colwin, 215.
Hoose, 77.
Ibid., 74.
K. Melloy, No Olympic Glory for Male Synchronized Swimmers, Edge Boston (July 30, 2008), http://www.edgeboston.com/index.php?ch=news&sc=glbt&s c2=news&sc3=&id=78177
T. Ziemer, Out of Sync: Male Synchro Swimmer Banned from Olympics, ABC News web site, http://www.tracyziemer.com/ABC-NEWS-out-of-sync. htm
G. Arnold, Synch Different, Metroactive (September 10–16, 1998), http://www.metroactive.com/papers/metro/09.10.98/cover/synchroswim-9836.html
Ibid.
NBC Apologizes for Mitcham Gay Snub, OutSports web site (September 27, 2008), http://outsports.com/olympics2008/2008/08/27/nbc-apologizes-formitcham-gay-snub/
NBC Defends Not Saying Mitcham Is Gay, OutSports web site (September 25, 2008), http://outsports.com/olympics2008/2008/08/25/nbc-defends-notsaying-mitcham-is-gay/
D. Morrow, Olympic Masculinity, in K. Wamsley et al. (eds), The Global Nexus Engaged, Proceedings of the Sixth International Symposium for Olympic Research (London, ON: University of Western Ontario, 2002), 126.
M. L. Adams, Artistic Impressions: Figure Skating, Masculinity, and the Limits of Sport (Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 2011), 104.
Ibid., 199.
K. Rounds, Ice: Reflections on a Sport Out of Whack, Ms. (May/June 1994), 27. Harding was better known for her involvement in the attack on Nancy Kerrigan, in an attempt to eliminate her rival from upcoming competitions.
See H. Lenskyj, The Winter Olympics: Geography Is Destiny? in H. Lenskyj and S. Wagg (eds), Handbook of Olympic Studies (Basingstoke, UK: Palgrave Macmillan, 2012), 88–102.
D. Wallechinsky, Complete Book of the Olympics (Harmondsworth, UK: Penguin, 1984)
D. Johnson and A. Ali, A Tale of Two Seasons, Social Science Quarterly 85:4 (2004), 974–93.
S. James, Brother-Sister Skating Pairs, Too Close for Comfort, ABC News web site (February 19, 2010), http://abcnews.go.com/Health/Olympics/ olympic-brother-sister-skating-pairs-close-vancouver-ice/story?id=9887494
T. Rogers, Can Figure Skating Go Butch? Salon.com web site (February 15, 2010), http://www.salon.com/2010/02/15/elvis_stojko_interview/
D. Bell, Figure Skating, the Never-Ending Story, Globe and Mail (February 8, 1997), D9.
Ibid.
Adams, 58.
R. Galindo, with E. Marcus, Icebreaker (New York: Pocket Books, 1997), 141
see also C. Brennan, Inside Edge (New York: Knopf Doubleday, 1997), 69.
K. Kaufman, So They’re All Gay, Right? Salon.com web site (February 22, 2002), http://www.salon.com/2002/02/22/galindo/
Brennan, 57.
TV Crew Upsets Gay Rights Group, Toronto Star (February 21, 2010).
A. Picard, Skating with an Olympic-Sized Dream, Globe and Mail (February 15, 1994), A7.
M. Garber, Victor Petrenko’s Mother-in-Law, in C. Baughmann (ed.), Women on Ice (New York: Routledge, 1995), 98.
D. Amaechi, Man in the Middle (New York: ESPN Books, 2007), 140.
Ibid., 271.
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© 2013 Helen Jefferson Lenskyj
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Lenskyj, H.J. (2013). In The Pool, on the Ice: Contested Terrain. In: Gender Politics and the Olympic Industry. Palgrave Studies in the Olympic and Paralympic Games. Palgrave Pivot, London. https://doi.org/10.1057/9781137291158_5
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