Olympic Games

Archive Report

Soviet-American Rivalry in the Olympics

Tokyo Prospects and American Physical Fitness

The eighteenth summer games of the modern Olympics, to be held in Tokyo next October, will be widely viewed as a major test of the relative athletic prowess of the United States and the Soviet Union. That the Olympics have become a testing ground for the two superpowers doubtless disturbs many people. Baron Pierre de Coubertin, the French nobleman who revived the Olympics in 1896, once declared: “The important thing in the Olympic games is not to win, but to take part.” His concept of the games as a vehicle for international understanding has been strained of late by a tendency to treat them as grist for political propaganda.

In any case, the fortunes of nations ...

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