Abstract

The core of this work examines the politics of the 1984 Los Angeles Olympics, in which the Budd affair played a small but important part. Many people share Zola Budds beliefs, and Chapter One devotes itself to dispelling that fanciful notion. The chapter provides a brief introduction to sport and politics, and it illuminates the links between them. Chapter One takes many of its examples from U.S. society. Chapter Two highlights the history of politics in the Olympics. The chapter employs a thematic, not a chronological, approach. Its goal is to allow an appreciation of the great extent to which politics has always been interwined with the Olympic Games, rather than to provide a comprehensive chronicle of that enduring mix. Readers will discover that politics has been a part of the Games since their inception and so no one event or nation placed a permanent political stain on a previously unblemished Olympics. Armed with this background, readers can best understand the detailed analysis of the politics of the Los Angeles Games presented in Chapter Three. The investigation probes not only the who and what of 1984 Olympic politics but the how and the why as well. Chapter Four focuses on the future of the Olympic games. The conclusion discusses the aftermath of the 1984 Los Angeles Games, previews the 1988 Seoul Games, and evaluates proposals for Olympic reform using the evidence found in the first three chapters. Aus dem Vorwort