This work deals with the summarization of data about the conditions of qualification for particular sport branches and disciplines for the Olympic Games. The issues focus on the 2016 summer Olympics. The aim of the theoretic part is to briefly introduce the history of the Olympics, the division of controlling authorities of international Olympic movement and the contribution of Olympic Games. Further are mentioned Olympic sports and disciplines, qualification of athletes for XXXI. Olympic Games in Rio de Janeiro in 2016, the attendance of athletes and the programme of the Olympics. The theoretic part ends with the chapter about evaluation of the sport performance. As for the processing of the result part, the analysis of the documents, published by individual international sport federations. The method of controlled conversation was used for problematic questions, which appear during writing this work. The result part presents qualification criterions for all athletes, which were integrated into the programme of XXXI. summer Olympic Games. The discussion deals with the approval of my hypothesis that there are groups of sports, which had the same qualification for the Olympics in 2016. In conclusion, particular groups of sports are commented and the purpose of my work is assessed.

This thesis presents a sociological critique of the concept of legacy as it surrounded the London 2012 Paralympic Games. A sociological approach was adopted to challenge much of the spontaneous sociology that surrounds the ascendancy of legacy within the Olympic and Paralympic space. Legacy, disability and the Paralympic Games are the predominant structures of the research problem. The literature review attempts to present a sociology of the sociological approaches in these fields. Underpinning the research design is Bourdieu et al. s (1991) epistemological hierarchy which consists of and proceeds from the break , the construction of a conceptual framework to the empirical design. This hierarchy contributed to the repositioning of legacy from the pursuit of cause and effect, or rather away from the pursuit of legitimacy and illegitimacy, of London 2012 to a study of the proposed and imposed causes and effects, legitimations and illegitimations of it. Aligned to this repositioning is the primary collection of data through interviews with five different institutional fields: government, media, corporate sponsors, disability sport and disability institutions. The research findings present a positional analysis of the inter- and intra-relations of these respective fields. In the discussion key symbolic struggles and issues are presented for each field with particular attention given to the development of the positive leaning and legitimising best ever Paralympic narrative and to the commercial and political legitimacy of the London 2012 Paralympic Games. It is concluded that legacy is ultimately a symbolic struggle of different visions of respective agents and institutions that are unable to achieve these absolute visions or ends.

Diploma thesis "The GDR and FRG olympic team at the Olympic games in Melbourne in 1956" describes the process of making the united german team, which has begun in 1955 and which was . Thesis deals with the mutual negotiations of both olympic teams and also describes the goals, which the sport officials and politics were trying to reach during the whole process of making the united team. The next part of the thesis deals with the real experience with the united german team at the summer olympic games in Melbourne in 1956 and also tries to answer the question, whether in reality this united german team was not more or less just two autonomous teams, which only had a few visible symbolic things such as clothes and flag together.

This thesis examines the struggle for equal gender representation in the Olympic swimming and athletics arena. It investigates the relationship in participation and representation between men and women in athletics and swimming from the first modern Olympic Games in Athens in 1896 to Rio de Janeiro in 2016.  When the modern Olympic Games resumed in 1896, they had been recreated by a group of privileged men. These men had created a forum for the aristocratic masculine world and initially had no intention of including women in their creation.  The contemporaries around the turn of the century in 1900 considered women to be weak, inappropriate and that femininity was the exact opposite of everything that the masculine competitive sport represented. Muscle, fitness and sweat were not something that the weak female bodies would be associated with. Man was created for the public sphere and woman for the home domains. The sports movement was a mirror of the prevailing privileged upper-class society and came to conform to the prevailing social and culturally constructed norms that were prevalent in the meantime. The women made a first breakthrough in the masculine sports sphere in the early 20th century and then they managed to make a real breakthrough in the 1920s. This created concern among the privileged men. Should women athletes change in a more masculine direction, would they even lose interest in traditional female responsibilities such as home and family formation?  The struggle for equal representation continued throughout the 20th century and only in connection with the feminine radicalization of the 1960s and 1970s as a real change did it begin to be seen again in the Olympic competition arenas and only after the turn of the millennium has real equality regarding representation been achieved.  In this thesis, I have studied  the athletics and swimming women inclusion to into the Olympic space. I spotlight how the two sports have developed from an equality and gender equality point of view. My survey prove a clear connection and have put figures on men and women's participation and demonstrated inequalities in the Olympic space.

A dissertation submitted in partial compliance with the requirements for a Masters Degree in Technology, in the Department of Chiropractic at the Durban University of Technology, 2009. / Introduction: National Olympic Committees (NOCs) select medical personnel to support their athletes at the Olympic Games. To best support athletes the knowledge, perception and utilisation of all medical professions is assumed to be high, however literature seems to indicate that this is not so. Objective: To determine the knowledge, perception and utilisation of Chiropractic by NOCs in order to develop a better relationship so that more athletes can benefit from Chiropractic care. Methods: A questionnaire was emailed to the 205 NOCs worldwide. Respective executive committee and medical commission members were asked to complete the questionnaires. Results: 76 NOCs responded (37%), returning 27 questionnaires. 30% of the respondents were high ranking members. 93% were highly educated with a bachelor’s degree or higher and 33% had represented their country as an athlete. Both committees agreed on the importance of a post-graduate sports qualification and perceived the profession to be one of spinal care specialists. Overall knowledge of Chiropractic was poor. A trend was observed among the medical commissions in their choice of Medical Doctors or Physiotherapists over Chiropractors and other professionals. The executive committees in contrast seemed more open-minded in their choice of professionals. No association was found between the knowledge and perception of Chiropractic and use of Chiropractic Conclusion: There is confusion regarding the role and scope of practice of Chiropractic by NOCs. In order to achieve a greater level of acceptance and utilisation of Chiropractic in international sports medical teams the profession needs to clarify their role, better educate NOC members on the benefits of Chiropractic, and obtain sports specific post-graduate programmes that are recognised internationally.

Building on a literature that identifies the technologies of liberal governance in the urban fabric of the nineteenth-century ‘liberal city’, my thesis explores the built environment of unified Berlin as a space within which power relations are performed and resisted. The original contribution to knowledge made by this thesis is through its contention that none of the forms of governmentality that have thus far been identified in the literature are adequate for an analysis of the Berlin Republic. To this end it posits the existence of a specifically post-authoritarian governmentality and uses the built environment of Berlin to explore its features and the ways in which it is continually (re)asserted, challenged and (re)negotiated in the German context. More specifically, it analyses post-1990 responses to National Socialist prestige buildings in Berlin which had also been incorporated into the highly politicised narratives of the Cold War: the former Aviation Ministry, the Olympic Stadium and the former Tempelhof Airport. Using these sites’ status as heterotopia, or ‘other spaces’, it highlights how the politics of the past inform the negotiation of the tensions between the celebration / delimitation of heterogeneity, the valorisation / instrumentalisation of ‘objective’ knowledge and the balance between freedom/ control. As well as uncovering evidence to support the idea of post-authoritarian governmentality, the thesis also finds indications that this is a transitional phase and that, in some respects, Germany can be seen to be moving towards the advanced liberal governance seen elsewhere in the western world.

This thesis evaluates the legacy/impact of the London 2012 Games for a non-hosting sub-region Leicestershire, principally through evaluations of four legacy-programmes (i.e. the Workplace Challenge, Get Set, Sport Makers, and Games Makers programmes), drawing conclusions about lessons learned from the Leicestershire 2012 legacy experience. The selection of Leicestershire as a non-hosting sub-region reflects the fact that little is known about the legacy/ impact of the Games in such contexts. The nature of Olympic legacy evaluation is considered as a complex, wide-ranging, and multi-staged process. This thesis thus focuses on two main areas: i) conducting a systematic review of the literature (covering the period 1996-2011) to explore and establish an understanding of the concepts of Olympic legacy , and evidenced legacy/impact of hosting the Olympics in previous Games; ii) assessing the extent to which the London 2012 Games had impacted on the changed legacy outcomes for Leicestershire through realist evaluations. Together with realist evaluations, analytic logic models and the assessment of additionality approaches are adopted in this study, focusing on the four legacy-programmes evaluations, wherein quantitative and/or qualitative methodology are utilised in order to identify the causal mechanisms that produced the anticipated/unanticipated effects in their specific contexts. This study is an empirical example of the application of the realist evaluation and assessment of additionality. It also produces an evidence base for policy analysis in order to inform stakeholders thinking regarding sustaining the legacy of the Games and any future major sporting events by identifying lessons learned for non-hosting contexts.

No description available.

Increased international competitiveness to host sport mega-events indicates their perceived value in stimulating regional and national economic, social and cultural development. In the context of broader governmental public opinion management strategies, sport mega-events hold the potential to mobilize soft power resources of the host country, expressed in values, culture and policies, and engage with and influence the publics of other countries. This thesis investigates the significance of sport mega-events for the host country’s public diplomacy strategies and practice by exploring the concepts of public diplomacy, sport mega-events, soft power and national image within a multi-disciplinary conceptual framework. The analysis of scholarly literature, official and media reports reveals how aspects of reputation, credibility, and legitimacy guide both foreign public opinion and the practice of public diplomacy in conjunction with sport mega-events. Moreover, international reputation of the host nation, including status, prestige and image, appeared to benefit the most as a result of strategic application of sport mega-events to public diplomacy. This can be achieved by proving functional reputation though demonstration of financial and organizational success. Alternatively, social reputation of the host is at risk of sustaining considerable damage as a result of resistance from social activists groups, thus requiring extensive damage control efforts of the host country's image. The conclusions drawn from this study raise significant questions about the potential of sport mega-events being effectively used for public diplomacy and the experience of the host governments, revealing functional competence as having the greatest potential to influence public diplomacy strategy built around hosting sport mega-events.

This thesis explores the significance of hosting the Beijing 2008 Olympic Games (OGs) on elite sport and sport for all development in China. The impacts of the OGs have received significant attention from both academics and practitioners worldwide in the last 20 years and attention has been predominantly paid to political, cultural, economic, and environmental impacts of hosting them, especially as these emerge after the event. However, little concern was given to changes in the host country s sport development that are due to games related preparations. This study identifies the characteristics of the sport system, the policy actors, and how such actors were involved in preparations for the 2008 OGs, and it also outlines the development of policy concerning elite sport and sport for all. A case study approach was adopted focusing on the 2008 OGs. Adopting a qualitative methodology, the study utilised document analysis and semi-structured interviews to elicit data regarding the significance of preparations for the 2008 OGs on elite sport and sport for all. Globalisation, governance and policy making were found to be useful lenses through which to explore the processes of the emergence of such impacts. This thesis found that central government and the General Administration of Sport (GAOS) were the two most powerful policy actors in both elite sport and sport for all development in China, and made decisions as regards how to develop China s sport taking the opportunities of hosting the 2008 OGs. The research reveals that preparations for the 2008 OGs have various impacts on the elite sport and sport for all sectors. On one hand, the impacts can be witnessed in increased funding, more attention received from central government and GAOS, more sport policies, increased number of sport venues, new and updated facilities and equipment, technological, scientific and medical support, and increased sport participation; on the other hand, through providing such support, GAOS exerted its control over non-governmental organisations and individuals, such as via the restrictions by GAOS on athletes commercial activities, and national competitions. The research found evidence that globalisation had influenced China s general governance (including sport governance) process since the 1970s, with governance becoming more privatised and decentralised. However, sport governance took a different path after China won the bid in 2001. Against the backdrop of decentralisation having been previously officially adopted for Chinese sport governance, the research revealed that in pursuit of the aim of winning more medals in the 2008 OGs temporarily recentralisation occurred as required by central government and GAOS. The research also revealed that increased numbers of policies were produced to develop both elite sport and sport for all, however the interests of the public had not always been satisfied because of China's closed policy making process. Therefore, some impacts had not turned out as expected for the public.