Sports & Games

The Victory Odes of Pindar

As the Olympics kicks off tomorrow, Mayor of London Boris Johnson has ensured that London 2012 retains its ties to the ancient world. Trained as a classicist and fond of reciting Latin (particularly in debate), he commissioned an ode by Armand D’Angour in the style of the Ancient Greek poet Pindar, which was recited at the Olympic Gala at Royal Opera House on July 24th. Oxford University classicist Dr Armand D’Angour’s Olympic Ode will be installed at the Olympic Park in East London, but you can discover Pindar’s verses on the blog today.

The Olympics and Music: then and now

By Lucy Allen

27 July 2012: the day that many Britons have been waiting for, and the day when the attention of the world will be focused on London and the Opening Ceremony of the Olympic Games. As a nation we have been holding our breath in anticipation of this extravaganza: a showcase of British and world sporting talent, and the spirit of competition. But the Games are more than just sport, they are also an opportunity for the host nation to demonstrate its cultural excellence and achievements.

What is the health impact of the 2012 London Olympic transport plans?

While the UK government worries about visitors streaming through customs at Heathrow, locals around the new Olympic site are worried about what the sudden wave of visitors will mean to them. What can they expect as ticket-holders jam roads, crowd public transport, and over-run East London? Will the commitment to public health hold true for transportation? And what will happen after the closing ceremony?

The Ties That Bind Ancient and Modern Sports

What do we share with the Ancient World? Thankfully, not too much. But we do share a love of sports and strangely enough we still approach sports in the same way. We complain about commercialization, but sponsors and marketing have existed since games began (although we’ve moved on from statues to cereal). And for the greatest games, the Olympics, we seek the best: the peak of human physical achievement and unique moments in time as records shatter. As the world awaits the London 2012 Summer Olympics, we spoke with David Potter, author of The Victor’s Crown: A History of Ancient Sport from Homer to Byzantium, about how sports unites us with our past.

Hitting the trail while wearing red, white, and blue

By Michael Otto
This summer, nonfiction reading lists are replete with voices from the battlefield. On bestseller lists, accounts from World War II are only a few steps away from inside perspectives on today’s Seal Teams. And regardless of the theater of battle or the decade of conflict, one cannot turn the final pages of these books without a deep appreciation of the value of team for those in conflict. The fighting unit, the organizational basis by which men and women at war live their daily lives, inspires tremendous loyalty — appropriate to the life and death contingencies members of the team face together. In battle, being a strong team member can save your life as well as the lives of those around you.

Tyson vs. Holyfield and the infamous ear-biting incident

By Donald W. Black, M.D.
Today is the 15th anniversary of one of the oddest episodes in the annals of sports: Mike Tyson bit the ear of Evander Holyfield in the third round of a heavyweight rematch, which led to his being disqualified from the match.

How not to infringe Olympic intellectual property rights

By Rachel Montagnon
Since 2005, when London won the Host City contract for this year’s Olympics, there has been an intensity of interest in how the London Organising Committee (LOCOG) would go about the protection of the Olympic image and in the detail of the UK Government’s legislative attempts to exclude those who would attempt to take advantage of that image, without paying for the privilege.

The Money Games

By David Potter
This past weekend Olympic superstar swimmer Janet Evans showed up in New York in the company of Olympic sponsor BMW. The London Olympics are unthinkable without their corporate sponsors, both for the site itself and for the teams that are going to compete. But what would a person connected with the ancient version of the Games think?

In remembrance of things passed

By Philip Carter
On Saturday 5 May, Chelsea face Liverpool in this year’s FA Cup final, the culmination of what (despite its relative, recent decline) remains the world’s most famous domestic football, i.e. ‘soccer’, tournament. If you cut your Cup teeth before the 1990s — since then the competition has been partially eclipsed by Premiership football — you’ll remember Final day as a national, indeed international, occasion when millions tuned in to events on a 115 x 75 yard field in north-west London.

Why is there a ban on advertising activity in and around the Olympic Games?

By Phillip Johnson
This summer the Olympics is coming to town. It will be a sporting spectacular – the best sportsmen and women on Earth competing for the ultimate sporting accolade. Yet the Olympics is no longer simply a festival of sport. National governments and brand owners alike have long wanted to be associated with excellence and sporting excellence in particular. The Olympic Games represents the pinnacle of that excellence and so makes it the most desirable sporting “property” in the World.

First modern Olympic Games held in Athens

This Day in World History
An estimated 60,000 spectators witnessed the opening ceremonies of the first modern Olympic Games, held in Athens, Greece, on April 6, 1896. The ceremonies took place in the Panathinaiko Stadium, originally built in 330 B.C. and rebuilt in gleaming marble for the occasion.

Albert Pujols, Occupy Wall Street, and the Buffett Rule

By Edward Zelinsky
As every baseball fan knows, Albert Pujols has signed a ten year, $254 million contract with the Los Angeles Angels. Pujols, a three-time MVP who has hit 445 home runs so far in his major league career, deserves every penny he is paid. The competition for Pujols demonstrated meritocracy and markets at their best.

Sports fanaticism: Present and past

By David Potter
The streets are packed. People are singing and shouting. They are wearing team colors; they are drinking, eating, fighting and betting. These fans are not in Green Bay, East Lansing, Philadelphia or Madison. They are in Constantinople, capital of the Roman Empire in 500 AD.

A note to the White House

By Michael Otto
Dear First Lady Obama:
I am writing this letter in support of your Let’s Move campaign against obesity. As you well know, traditional recommendations for physical activity and good nutrition have met with failure in the United States. According to the Center for Disease Control, rates of adults who engage in no leisure time physical activity have been in the range of 20-30% for over 20 years. Moreover, over 75% of individuals do not

Tennis

By Anatoly Liberman
Suggestions on the origin of tennis go back to the beginning of English etymological lexicography, and one can teach a semester-long course by using only the attempts to discover who, where, when, and why called the game this. The game of tennis is not called tennis in any other language, unless a borrowing from English is used (as happened to hockey and football among others), and some people thought this was reason enough to insist on the English origin of the word. They asked questions like: “Why should we go

The King of Showmen

By Rebecca Alpert

Today, Harlem Globetrotter star Reece “Goose” Tatum will be inducted into the Basketball Hall of Fame. But Tatum also deserves consideration for induction into the Baseball Hall of Fame in Cooperstown. Baseball was Tatum’s first sport and first love.

Tatum was a gifted pantomime artist and comedian.