Einleitung

This book is the result of the research project undertaken by the Johannes Gutenberg-Universität Mainz, the Rio de Janeiro State University and the Olympic Studies Centre at the Autonomous University of Barcelona from 2013 to 2015. The goal of the project is to investigate the structure of values that are explicitly and implicitly associated with the Olympic Games. The overarching idea of the research was previously to qualitatively investigate the view those respondent Olympic scholars have of the Olympic Idea and Olympic ideals nowadays, reviewing their interpretation of Olympic values. Olympic scholars are researchers who have been gathering information about the Olympic Games and the Olympic Movement for many years. They are able to observe reality and articulate their thoughts. Furthermore, they are independent from the Movement and devote their research to find updated interpretations. This e-book is mainly the presentation of the 43 essays and of two research papers about the meaning of their contents .Certainly, the e-book on behalf of its authors and researchers is a necessary step to provide important implications to Olympic organizations (IOC, NOCs, OCOGs, and NOA) to enable them to “revitalize” certain values of the Olympic Games. Finally, the book is to potentially create “basic knowledge” for future Olympic research related to the Olympic Values and to the Olympic Idea. After all, the questions raised in Rio de
Janeiro in May 2013 became more valid when brought forward to international concerns. (geändert)