[Example] Five books on the glories and flaws of the Olympics

DOES ANY endeavour express the virtues and faults of the human race quite so well as the Olympic and Paralympic games? The sports extravaganza, which has summer and winter versions, is supposed to exemplify ideals of fellowship as well as excellence (hence the motto “faster, higher, stronger–together”). And it does. Inevitably, it has also displayed less admirable traits, such as greed and a propensity to cheat. Togetherness falters when governments behave in ways that the International Olympic Committee (IOC) feels it must punish. At the games that begin in Paris on July 26th, Russian (and Belarusian) athletes will have to compete as neutrals because Vladimir Putin made war on Ukraine. (Russia has been banned before for state-sponsored doping.)

The five books we recommend here show both the glories and the failures of the games, from the astonishing feats of marathon runners and dancing horses to the environmental and financial costs and geopolitical controversies. The Olympics have some claim to be the greatest show on Earth, but ever fewer cities are willing to play host to the party. As you watch the spectacle—the first games since the pandemic that will not be trammelled by restrictions to protect public health—these books will deepen your understanding and appreciation of it.

David Goldblatt’s comprehensive history, published in 2015, begins with the rebirth of the Olympics in the late 19th century. This was the brainchild of Pierre de Coubertin, a French aristocrat who was educated by Jesuits but found a calling in advancing the idea, inspired by the Olympics of ancient Greece, that competition among amateur athletes could foster peace among nations. Mr Goldblatt traces the transformation of the Olympics from Coubertin’s passion project to the behemoth it is today. A chronological account might sound dull, but Mr Goldblatt tells the story with verve and sprinkles it with levity. We learn, for instance, that a marathoner in the games in St Louis in 1904 was given a “concoction of strychnine, alcohol and egg whites” instead of water by his coach during the race. He won. Every edition of the games is shaped by the economic, social and geopolitical forces of the time, making this a history of the world as well as of the Olympics.

If there is one sport that defines the Olympics it is athletics—ie,track and field events. Foot races have featured in every edition of the summer games since the first in 1896. For athletes, who get little attention except during the Olympic fortnight every four years, the games are a lodestar, the spur for their remarkable feats, sometimes even indirectly. In Helsinki in 1952 Roger Bannister, a British runner, came fourth in the 1,500m race, missing out on a medal in a thrilling run (the top five finishers were separated by 0.8 seconds). That agonising loss, however, gave Bannister the motivation to conquer another athletic summit two years later in a race organised by Oxford University: running a mile in less than four minutes. Neal Bascombe deftly tells the story of the attempts to break this barrier—long the holy grail of middle-distance running. But it is not just the tale of one man: Bannister was challenged by John Landy, an Australian, and Wes Santee, an American. Mr Bascombe makes of their story an ode to the power of determination and competition to change the boundaries of human performance.

The Olympics give niche sports their moment. One is rowing, which has a rich history but a small fan base and little cash. Yet rowers are as fierce in their pursuit of Olympic glory as practitioners of more glamorous sports. In “The Amateurs” David Halberstam, a Pulitzer-prize winning journalist, shows vividly what drives athletes by relating the story of four rowers as they competed to represent America in the single-scull (one-person boat) event at the Los Angeles games in 1984. What motivated these men, all from upper-class backgrounds, to endure so much suffering for scant reward beyond an Olympic medal? Halberstam gives a simple answer: “they wanted to, for no reward other than the feeling itself”. His book is a paean to the amateur sportsperson, once the only sort who could compete in the Olympics.

As they watch runners, jumpers, weightlifters, fencers, wrestlers, swimmers and gymnasts compete at the Olympics many less gifted mortals ask themselves what explains their prowess. Athletes themselves often say that the answer is discipline and obsessive training. No doubt that helps, but as David Epstein, a journalist, points out in this meticulously researched book, elite athletes also start out with extraordinary physical attributes. Nearly 60% of professional baseball players are born with “superior” depth perception, compared with around 20% of the general population. Eero Mantyranta, a Finnish cross-country skier who won seven medals in three Olympics in the 1960s, is another example. He inherited a genetic mutation that gave him extra red blood cells and haemoglobin, enabling him to absorb far more oxygen than his competitors could. “The Sports Gene” does not claim, despite its title, that DNA alone leads to greatness. Of course, the hard graft of training matters a lot, too. But if you’ve been cursed with genes for clumsiness, 10,000 hours of practice will not make of you an Olympic gymnast.

Are the Olympics worth the trouble and money they cost their hosts? Increasingly governments and many of their citizens think not. Fewer cities are volunteering to stage the games. Before the Paris games, 44% of the city’s residents thought that hosting the Olympics would be a “bad thing”, according to one poll. Andrew Zimbalist, an economist, explains why Parisians are right. The most important reason is money. The cost of hosting the Olympics has soared, but there is scant evidence that the games bring economic benefits. There is plenty of revenue. The games in London generated $5.2bn. But the IOC claims much of that for itself, leaving the host city to foot the massive bill for building stadiums and the like. In our review of Mr Zimbalist’s book nearly a decade ago, we said that the IOC should “do far more to curb costs and improve transparency and accountability”. Unfortunately, that message is still relevant today.

If the economic benefits of holding the Olympics are uncertain, that was especially true of the games in Tokyo in 2021, from which spectators were barred to contain covid. In that year we explained why the Olympics allowed professional athletes to compete. This chart-based article examines the relationship between a country’s economic strength and its Olympic performance. We pointed out that the Olympics’ audience is getting old and suggested how they might attract a younger one: make some e-sports, or video games, a full Olympic sport. We reviewed the tell-all autobiography of Grigory Rodchenkov, who masterminded Russia’s doping programme.■