The Olympic Games is unquestionably the largest and most important sporting event in the world. Yet who exactly is accountable for its successes and failures? This book examines the legitimacy and accountability of the International Olympic Committee (IOC). This non-governmental organisation wields extraordinary power, but there is no democratic basis for its authority. This study questions the supremacy of the IOC, arguing that there is a significant accountability deficit. Investigating the conduct of the IOC from an international legal perspective, the book moves beyond a critique of the IOC to explore potential avenues for reform, means of improving democratic procedures and increasing accountability. If the Olympics are to continue to be our most celebrated sporting event, those who organise them must be answerable to the citizens that they can potentially harm as well as benefit. Full of original insights into the inner workings of the IOC, this book is essential reading for all those interested in the Olympics, sport policy, sport management, sport mega-events, and the law.

At the 1984 Olympics, American Scott Hamilton skated into the history books when he claimed a gold medal in Sarajevo. Beside him the entire time was his coach, Don Laws. A member of the U.S. Figure Skating Hall of Fame and a U.S. Junior Champion, Laws is one of the most respected and admired ice skating coaches in the world. In addition to Hamilton, Don was the coach of champions Michael Weiss and Patrick Chan. This authorized biography tells the story of Law's exemplary life and chronicles his singular dedication to figure skating. Don Laws: The Life of an Olympic Figure Skating Coach recounts Don's youth, from his childhood in Washington, D.C. to his Junior Men's Figure Skating Championship to his triumphs as a coach on the international stage. Featuring personal interviews with many of his former pupils, this humorous and enlightening biography captures Don's dedication to the sport and to his students. In addition, this book goes behind the scenes of the controversial new judging system--for which Laws was one of only four coaches worldwide to take part in its creation--as well as touches upon the break between Don Laws and his star pupil, Patrick Chan. Including exclusive interviews with Scott Hamilton, Michael Weiss, premier Russian coach Tamara Moskvina, former International Skating Union member Sonia Bianchetti, and current ISU President Ottavio Cinquanta, this book is a one-of-a-kind look at a man who never broke from his beliefs and ideals and never wavered in his love for the sport. A chapter devoted to skating techniques laid out by Laws will be a helpful tool for figure skating coaches; but for the figure skater, and for any fan of the sport, it will be the stories, interviews, photographs, and history that make this book entertaining and inspiring.

I am deeply honoured and very pleased indeed to have been invited to write the Foreword to this book, especially as the great success of and excitement generated by the Beijing Olympics last Summer is still fresh in all our minds! This is the first work on this important subject – the Olympic Games having been well described as ‘the greatest sporting show on earth’ – and the author, Alexandre Miguel Mestre, a distinguished Portuguese international sports lawyer, is to be warmly congratulated on producing it. The book covers the historical development of ‘Olympic Law’ and the current legal status of the International Olympic Committee (IOC) as an NGO (non-g- ernmental organisation) under Public International Law, and its various constituent members and organs. The UN resolutions on the Olympic Truce of which the latest one is published in the book, are of a recommendatory nature (‘soft law’), but well illustrate the wide range of international legal instruments, which constitute the corpus of so-called ‘Olympic Law’, including the inter-State Nairobi Treaty on the Protection of the Olympic Symbol – the famous five interconnected rings. The book also addresses some contemporary legal issues affecting the Olympic Movement, including eligibility criteria, dual participation in the Olympics and the Paralympics as well as environmental concerns and the protection of the so-called ‘Olympic Properties’ – in other words the valuable intellectual property rights of the IOC including TV rights – without which the Olympic Games could not be financed and staged.

Olympic Laws: Culture, Values, Tensions is the first book to analyse fully the Olympic legal framework and its application to the IOC and the Olympic Games through a socio-legal lens. It opens up a new window into understanding the Olympic Games across recent iterations of the Games and on to future Games. The book begins by defining the parameters of the emergent legal sub-fields of Sports Law, lex Olympica and Olympic Law, through the identification of the sources of these Olympic Laws and their underpinning norms. It then uses a series of case studies to demonstrate how lex Olympica has evolved as a means of defending the Olympic Movement from unwanted legal interventions, how Olympic Law has been created to protect the commercial rights vested in the Games, and how the legacies created by this unique category of law have a lasting impact on host cities and beyond. It concludes with a call that the IOC should recalibrate its relationships with prospective hosts and the participating athletes by requiring specific adherence to the Fundamental Principles of Olympism. This is essential reading for any student or researcher with an interest in Olympic studies, sports law, or socio-legal studies or any practising lawyer or events professional looking to better understand the impact and institutions of mega-events.

Despite taking a wide variety of forms, sport is universal. Circumstances and events generating legal issues in sport are similarly universal, but sport operates under many legal systems worldwide. Fragmentation and inconsistency in legal outcomes often result. This innovative collection of essays by leading scholars of sports law addresses a gap in the literature. It advances understanding of how different legal systems respond to common issues and offers insights into the developing international system of sports law. Researchers will find this book of inescapable assistance and interest. Hayden Opie, Melbourne Law School, Australia Nafziger and Ross have provided an enormously useful collection of incisive and integrating essays that cover the gamut of important issues in the emerging field of international sport law. Andrew Zimbalist, Smith College, US This Handbook presents a comprehensive collection of essays by leading scholars and practitioners in the burgeoning field of international sports law. The authors address significant legal issues on two gradually converging tracks: the mainstream institutional framework of the law, primarily the International Olympic Committee, international sports federations, regional and national sports authority, and the Court of Arbitration for Sport; and the commercial sports industry. Topics include the institutional structure; fundamental issues, legal principles and decisions within those institutions; mediation, arbitration and litigation of disputes; doping, gambling and the expanding use of technology in competition; athlete eligibility requirements; discrimination; and protection of athletes. The book also covers a broad range of commercial issues related to competition law and labor markets; media, image, and intellectual property rights; event sponsorships; and players' agents. Comparative analyses of young sports models and practices in North America, Europe and elsewhere supplement the general theme of international sports law. This major collection of essays on some of the most controversial, cutting-edge issues in international sports law, will be a captivating read for academics and students of sports law, sports management, international law and comparative law, as well as practicing lawyers and players agents. Senior executives and other professionals in the sports industry will also find much to interest them in this well-documented Handbook.

When the athletes enter the stadium and the Olympic flame is lit, the whole world watches. Billions will continue to follow the events and to share in the athletes' joys and sorrows for the next sixteen days. Readers of this book, however, will watch forthcoming editions of the Olympic Games in a completely different light. Unlike many historical or official publications and somewhat biased commercial works, it provides -- in a clear, readable form -- informative and fascinating material on many aspects of what Olympism is all about: its history, its organization and its actors. Although public attention is often drawn to various issues surrounding this planetary phenomenon -- whether concerning the International Olympic Committee, the athletes, the host cities or even the scandals that have arisen -- the Olympic System as such is relatively little known. What are its structures, its goals, its resources? How is it governed and regulated? What about doping, gigantism, violence in the stadium? In addition to providing a wealth of information on all these subjects, the authors also show how power, money and image have transformed Olympism over the decades. They round off the work with thought-provoking reflections regarding the future of the Olympic System and the obstacles it must overcome in order to survive.

Given the impact that successive court rulings have had on the organisation of the sports movement in the past 15 years, the autonomy of non-governmental sports organisations has become a highly topical concern in Europe. It is also closely related to the issue of governance, the subject of previous Council of Europe studies. The Enlarged Partial Agreement on Sport (EPAS) decided to explore the concept of autonomy in greater depth by studying the conceptual, political, legal, economic and psycho-sociological aspects of the subject. This study was carried out at the request of the EPAS by the Swiss Graduate School of Public Administration (IDHEAP) on the basis of a questionnaire sent to public authorities in charge of sport and to national and international umbrella sports organisations. In addition to an analysis of the data obtained, documents produced by public authorities and sports organisations on this emerging issue are presented. This study contributes to a better understanding of the concept of autonomy and offers a clear picture of the issues involved.

The Olympic Games is unquestionably the largest and most important sporting event in the world. Yet who exactly is accountable for its successes and failures? This book examines the legitimacy and accountability of the International Olympic Committee (IOC). This non-governmental organisation wields extraordinary power, but there is no democratic basis for its authority. This study questions the supremacy of the IOC, arguing that there is a significant accountability deficit. Investigating the conduct of the IOC from an international legal perspective, the book moves beyond a critique of the IOC to explore potential avenues for reform, means of improving democratic procedures and increasing accountability. If the Olympics are to continue to be our most celebrated sporting event, those who organise them must be answerable to the citizens that they can potentially harm as well as benefit. Full of original insights into the inner workings of the IOC, this book is essential reading for all those interested in the Olympics, sport policy, sport management, sport mega-events, and the law.

A timely, no-holds barred, critical political history of the modern Olympic Games The Olympics have a checkered, sometimes scandalous, political history. Jules Boykoff, a former US Olympic team member, takes readers from the event’s nineteenth-century origins, through the Games’ flirtation with Fascism, and into the contemporary era of corporate control. Along the way he recounts vibrant alt-Olympic movements, such as the Workers’ Games and Women’s Games of the 1920s and 1930s as well as athlete-activists and political movements that stood up to challenge the Olympic machine.

In this “must-read for anyone concerned with race, sports, and politics in America” (William C. Rhoden, New York Times bestselling author), the inspirational and largely unknown true story of the eighteen African American athletes who competed in the 1936 Berlin Olympic Games, defying the racism of both Nazi Germany and the Jim Crow South. Set against the turbulent backdrop of a segregated United States, sixteen Black men and two Black women are torn between boycotting the Olympic Games in Nazi Germany or participating. If they go, they would represent a country that considered them second-class citizens and would compete amid a strong undercurrent of Aryan superiority that considered them inferior. Yet, if they stayed, would they ever have a chance to prove them wrong on a global stage? Five athletes, full of discipline and heart, guide you through this harrowing and inspiring journey. There’s a young and feisty Tidye Pickett from Chicago, whose lithe speed makes her the first African American woman to compete in the Olympic Games; a quiet Louise Stokes from Malden, Massachusetts, who breaks records across the Northeast with humble beginnings training on railroad tracks. We find Mack Robinson in Pasadena, California, setting an example for his younger brother, Jackie Robinson; and the unlikely competitor Archie Williams, a lanky book-smart teen in Oakland takes home a gold medal. Then there’s Ralph Metcalfe, born in Atlanta and raised in Chicago, who becomes the wise and fierce big brother of the group. From burning crosses set on the Robinsons’s lawn to a Pennsylvania small town on fire with praise and parades when the athletes return from Berlin, Olympic Pride, American Prejudice has “done the world a favor by bringing into the sunlight the unknown story of eighteen black Olympians who should never be forgotten. This book is both beautiful and wrenching, and essential to understanding the rich history of African American athletes” (Kevin Merida, editor-in-chief of ESPN’s The Undefeated).