Word: coubertin
(lookup in dictionary)
(lookup stats)
Dates: all
Sort By: most recent first
(reverse)
Pierre de Coubertin, the founder of the modern Olympics, conceived of the Games as a global melding of body, will and mind. His ambitions were grand, but the Frenchman's worldview barely extended beyond Europe. In the 1896 inaugural Olympics, only 14 nations competed. Not a single Asian country was invited...
...Unfortunately, it looks as though events are about to repeat themselves. As Pierre de Coubertin, creator of the modern Olympics, noted, “Holding an Olympic Games means evoking history.” Will President Hu Jintao refuse to congratulate a gold medalist who happens to be Taiwanese? Will China’s own “undesirables” be conveniently moved out of the television cameras’ sight...
...Mill worried that progress itself--with its speed and stress and short attention spans--would cause a sort of "moral effeminacy" and "inaptitude for every kind of struggle." By the end of the 19th century, a manhood malaise permeated the entire Western world: in France it inspired Pierre de Coubertin to create the Olympic movement; in Britain it moved Robert Baden-Powell to found the Boy Scouts; in the U.S. it fueled a passion for the new sport of football and helped make a hero of rough-riding Theodore Roosevelt...
...sake of a token or who exploited their superstar status. There will always be those who resort to such methods, and it does not take technology or modernity. The Games continue to occur because the people devoted to the ideals of fair play and athleticism, such as Baron de Coubertin, have maintained a strong, optimistic position against such negativism. I also wonder what the point of criticizing the spectacle of the Games—as embodied by the opening ceremonies—has on the bearing of the editorial’s main argument. As the host country, Italy presented...
...should they? The viewers at home would much rather watch Hollywood-produced orgies of vainglorious athletic competition with tighter scripts, deeper characters, and bigger explosions than half-hearted coverage of the Olympics. In all seriousness, it is quite sad how perverted the Games have become. Baron Pierre de Coubertin, the founder of the modern Olympics, originally envisioned that athletes would recognize that it was most important “not to win but to take part, just as the most important thing in life is not the triumph but the struggle. The essential thing is not to have conquered...