Abstract
The rituals of the Olympic Games are a case study in the invention of tradition. In particular, from the time of the founding of the modern Olympics in the late nineteenth century to the contemporary deliberations of IOC marketing strategists, some kinship to the rites of the original festival in ancient Greece has been either claimed or implied. At the centre of this mythologising has stood the Olympic flame, which was never more prominently displayed than at London 2012.
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Notes
Mark Golden, ‘The ancient Olympics and the modern: mirror and mirage’, in Helen Jefferson Lenskyj and Stephen Wagg (eds.), The Palgrave Handbook of Olympic Studies (Basingstoke: Palgrave Macmillan 2012), pp. 15–25, p. 17.
Andy McSmith, ‘Aryan ideals, not ancient Greece, were the inspiration behind flame tradition’, The Independent, 8 April 2008, p. 3.
Janet Cahill, ‘The Olympic flame and torch: running towards Sydney 2000’, in R. Barney, K. Wamsley, S. Martyn and G. MacDonald (eds.), Global and Cultural Critique: Problematizing the Olympic Games Proceedings of Fourth International Symposium for Olympic Research (London and Ontario: International Centre for Olympic Studies, 1998), pp. 181–190, p. 183, http://library.la84.org/SportsLibrary/ISOR/ISOR1998u.pdf; accessed 2 November 2014.
Phil Cohen, On the Wrong Side of the Track?: East London and the Post Olympics (London: Lawrence and Wishart, 2013), pp. 256–257.
Helen Jefferson Lenskyj, Inside the Olympic Industry: Power, Politics and Activism (Albany: State University of New York Press, 2000), pp. 155–171
Jules Boykoff, Celebration Capitalism and the Olympic Games (Abingdon: Routledge, 2014), pp. 39–42.
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© 2015 Stephen Wagg
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Wagg, S. (2015). Looking for Inspiration: The Politics of the Olympic Flame at London 2012. In: The London Olympics of 2012. Global Culture and Sport Series. Palgrave Macmillan, London. https://doi.org/10.1057/9781137326348_4
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1057/9781137326348_4
Publisher Name: Palgrave Macmillan, London
Print ISBN: 978-1-349-57644-9
Online ISBN: 978-1-137-32634-8
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