The main theme of this work is analysis blending of sport and international relations. This relationship is discussed on the example of Olympic Games in Moscow and Los Angeles. These Olympic Games met with collective boycott of the Western or more preciesly the Eastern block. Boycotts of both of these Olympics Games were associated with the current political situation and with the culmination of the Cold War. The Soviet Union invaded to Afghanistan in 1980.Significant part of the Western world responded to this invasion by announcing a boycott of the olympic games in Moscow. The olympic games in Los Angeles were held four years later. Most of the countries of the Eastern block decided to boycott the games beacause of the fear for the safety of their sport expeditions. The theoretical part of this work describes the main events between sport and internetional relations in the 20th and the 21th century. The practical part is devoted only to olympic games in Moscow and Los Angeles, It is especially focused on the period before these Olympics Games. During these periods it has been decided about the boycott of the games at the high level policy. Final thesis, which is based on this diploma work, is the fact, that the sport is frequently used tool of the foreign policy and it is not very effective.

Cities and countries increasingly seek mega-events to boost tourism, update local infrastructure, and improve the international standing of the host community. Benefits are actively promoted by the organizing committees, but these large-scale events also create significant economic, environmental and social costs for the host community. Measuring resident support is necessary because their support is required to secure the rights to the event, and to provide the necessary economic and human resources needed for hosting the event. This study utilized existing data on the 1996 Atlanta Olympic Games to investigate the impact of a mega-event on the host community, and to measure resident support for the event. Social exchange theory provided the theoretical background for this dissertation. The theory states that the costs and benefits of an exchange are continually re-evaluated by the actors in the exchange relationship. The primary contribution of this study is support for the notion that social exchanges are temporal in nature; residents continually monitored the positive and negative impacts of the event on themselves and on their community. To reach this conclusion, this study utilized four data points in the year leading up to the Olympics to assess the changes in residents’ perceptions of the impacts of the event over time. These changes were evaluated in light of residents’ support for the event. A factor analysis reduced the fifteen impact statements into three factors: Benefits, Local Problems, and External Problems. Residents were segmented according to their assessment of the event impacts, resulting in three clusters: Supporters, Cynics, and Realists. Proximity to the main event location also was evaluated since this variable has had mixed results in previous resident studies. Results showed that resident perceptions varied over time, thus providing support for monitoring residents over multiple time periods. In addition, residents’ support and residents’ plans to attend the event were contributing factors in the assessment of the Benefits and Local Problems. Supporters, Cynics, and Realists demonstrated significant differences over time in their assessment of External Problems, and proximity to the event was found to be a significant factor in residents’ assessment of Local Problems. / Ph. D.

The thesis analyzes the development and status of the Olympic Movement in the Visegrad countries and makes the mutual comparison of it in these countries. History of development of modern sport since its inception, including interest in the nascent Olympic Movement in these countries, has similar features. Especially after the onset of communism the Czech and Slovak Republics, Hungary and Poland, went, not only in sport, through similar developments. This area was "united" and its management has pursued state organization, which claimed to control all branches of sport. After the fall of the communist regime awaited new challenges for sport. Sport had to at least partially replace state funding for alternative sources, build it's own structures, set up relationships between subjects of sports scene, establish the place in these relations and structures of the Olympic Committee or influence the legislative framework for their own effect. During the research it became clear that understanding the development of sport and the Olympic Movement after the fall of communism is not possible without a thorough description of the situation in the region after the Second World War and the emergence of communist regimes in the countries of the future Visegrad Four. Therefore, the original intention, working primarily...

The purpose of the thesis is to explore how the negotiations about the United German Olympic Teams (1956-1964) were represented in the West and East German press, specifically in Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung (FRG) and Neues Deutschland (GDR). The United German Olympic Teams were the last bridge connecting the two Germanys, continuing to exist even after the construction of the Berlin wall. The thesis is based on the assumption that sport played an important role in the construction of post- war German identities. Moreover, it will be argued that the two German states relied heavily on ideological demarcation from the respective "other" for legitimization. Thus, the thesis will argue that the discourses about the constitution of the team reflect on questions of identity, unity, and division. In order achieve this, Fairclough's method of Critical Discourse Analysis will be used to examine ideological and symbolic content in the discourses on the negotiations between the two National Olympic Committees. Powered by TCPDF (www.tcpdf.org)

Contested land-management plans make spatial data about values that people attach to the landscape necessary for federal land management. The study area for this project is the Olympic Peninsula, Washington, an area that is divided by a complex mosaic of land jurisdictions, including public lands administered by the National Park Service, National Forest Service, and Washington State, as well as interspersed tribal and private landholdings surrounding the perimeter. During the summer of 2012, I collected map and survey data from visitors at fourteen popular destinations around the Olympic Peninsula, including visitor centers, campgrounds, trail access points, and a ferry. Three research objectives were evaluated in my thesis: 1) determine a general typology of visitors, 2) understand what values and activities visitors associate with places in the peninsula, and 3) compare visitor data with resident data from the Human Ecology Mapping Project (HEM), a collaboration between the US Forest Service Pacific Northwest Research Station, the Institute of Culture and Ecology, and Portland State University. Analysis using ArcGIS included density and density hot spot calculations for a composite of the data as well as subsets based on types of visitors and individual values and activities. A majority of the participants were older males with higher education. Results indicate that visitors with different levels of familiarity spend time in different parts of the Peninsula. Aesthetic, recreation, and wilderness are the values most often included in the survey; hiking, non-cardio recreation, and sociocultural are the activity groups most often included in the survey. Visitors primarily mark places in Olympic National Park. Visitors, including those who live locally, responded in strikingly different ways than residents who participated in HEM. This research produced expected results that not only substantiate knowledge about specific places in the Olympic Peninsula, but also support theories about environmental cognition.

Rock glaciers are tongue-shaped or lobate masses of rock debris which occur below cliffs and talus in many alpine regions. They are best developed in continental alpine climates where it is cold enough to preserve a core or matrix of ice within the rock mass but insufficiently snowy to produce true glaciers. Previous reports have identified and briefly described several rock glaciers in the Olympic Mountains, Washington {Long 1975a, pp. 39-41; Nebert 1984), but no detailed integrative study has been made regarding the geomorphic character, age,and distribution of these features.

The thesis analyzes the development and status of the Olympic Movement in the Visegrad countries and makes the mutual comparison of it in these countries. History of development of modern sport since its inception, including interest in the nascent Olympic Movement in these countries, has similar features. Especially after the onset of communism the Czech and Slovak Republics, Hungary and Poland, went, not only in sport, through similar developments. This area was "united" and its management has pursued state organization, which claimed to control all branches of sport. After the fall of the communist regime awaited new challenges for sport. Sport had to at least partially replace state funding for alternative sources, build it's own structures, set up relationships between subjects of sports scene, establish the place in these relations and structures of the Olympic Committee or influence the legislative framework for their own effect. During the research it became clear that understanding the development of sport and the Olympic Movement after the fall of communism is not possible without a thorough description of the situation in the region after the Second World War and the emergence of communist regimes in the countries of the future Visegrad Four. Therefore, the original intention, working primarily...

Analysis of elite performances is important to elucidate the characteristics of effective weightlifting technique contributing to the highest level of achievement. The general technique of the weightlifting movements is well established. However, it is also apparent that weightlifting technique can differ based on athlete characteristics. Thus, existing technical models may not accurately reflect current technique of top performers or be applied generically to athletes of different skill, size, sex, or ability. Therefore, the purpose of this descriptive study was to update the scientific knowledge of snatch technique of top international weightlifters. This study used video analysis to determine barbell trajectory and kinematics of 319 successful snatch attempts from two major international competitions. Relative frequencies of barbell trajectory types differed based on competition, sex, category, and ranking. No statistical differences were observed among the top-three performers for either sex for most kinematic variables, and there were no overall discernible patterns of effect size differences for individual or clusters of kinematic variables. The results of this study indicate that weightlifting success can be achieved with a variety of technique profiles.

In September 2017, the International Olympic Committee (IOC) announced that, for the first time in its history, it would award the hosting of two different Olympic Games at the same time, giving the 2024 and 2028 Summer Olympic Games to Paris and Los Angeles respectively. As a result, the question is raised as to why the IOC broke tradition in its host city selection process. The break of tradition is presumably due to a lack of candidates to host the 2028 Summer Olympics. With prior host cities reporting astronomical costs and high debt balances associated with hosting, many cities have retracted their bids or have refused to submit candidature bids altogether. The Olympics are one of the largest, most economically impactful mega-events in modern culture. While hosting does provide a nation with the opportunity to show off its infrastructure and culture before millions of people worldwide, the costs to host the event have steadily risen as the Olympics have become a larger and larger spectacle. This study uses a logistic regression model to determine the relative factors that determine a city's willingness to bid and uses the results to draw conclusions as to why the willingness to host has fluctuated across time. The results show a definite change in the probabilities of a potential city bidding to host the Olympic Games across time and also provide insight into the factors that determine these changes in probabilities. By determining these conclusions, this study hopes to provide insight into ways that hosting the Olympics can become accessible to all prospective host cities so that there is increased competition in the host city selection process.

The work deals with the history of the Olympic Games, which were held in Moscow in 1980 and four years later in Los Angeles. These two major sporting events have been very affected by the political situation. The Soviet military intervention in Afghanistan in the end of 1979 led to the boycott of the Olympic Games from the US and a number of other States. I t was the largest boycott of the history of the games.Also indirectly led to the boycott of the games in Los Angeles, the Soviet Union and its satellites four years later. It is therefore both Olympics history analyzed in political context internationally. In this respect are the most important relations between the Soviet Union and the United States, mentioned are the other important events of international politics in the 1970s. years, including the Soviet-Afghan relations. In the case of two Olympiads are mentioned important facts concerning the Organization of the games facilities, sports venues, results and more. Mention also the impact of the boycott to cast individual and team competitions both Olympics. Part of the work is devoted to the Czechoslovak looking at the whole issue. The history of the Olympics, both the international situation and the way they were presented and accepted at the time in Czechoslovakia are the result of a...