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Swedish gymnastics has been reduced to a directory of progressive analytical movements intended to form the basis of what is known in French physical education as a global gymnastics. This article explains how Philippe Tissié was inspired by Swedish gymnastics in his development of a hybrid vision between the Swedish method of physical education and the French model that was largely derived from the works of Jean Saint-Martin Amoros and Philippe Sarremejane. The paper demonstrates how Tissié’s French gymnastics was not only limited to analytical movements but also included the practice of sports. At the same time, it explains how the creation of this hybrid model meshed scientific findings from life sciences (biology and physiology) with human and social sciences (psychology and sociology). Between 1886 and 1935, Tissié’s appropriation, thus, enabled him to structure his conceptions of physical education and to move from the Swedish to the Franco-Swedish method.

In the mid-1960s, how did a small French mountain village become a high performance international Olympic training center? This article intends to answer this question by examining the social conditions behind the center’s creation. The sporting and political context of the Olympic Games in Tokyo (1964) and Mexico (1968) proved fertile ground for the rationalization of sports through stabilizing a medical and sporting administration and implementing a stronger scientific framework. From this perspective, the medicalization of athletic performance in the 1960s played a central role in the conversion of Font-Romeu, transformed from an acclimatization station in the early 1960s into a renowned international altitude training center just a few years later. The article will take a comprehensive look at the construction and management of such a center, and how it became a game changer in the international movement of sportspersons and sports-related personnel the world over.

This article analyzes the relationship between the life of Li Ning and his journey from the world of athletics to the world of business. The article explores how historical and social context is indispensable to understanding how everyone writes their history. The premise is that we cannot ignore the context of the athletes when assessing their social contributions. Li, who initially gained success as an Olympic gymnast, became a heavyweight entrepreneur, playing a significant role in the collective imagination of Chinese people. The Chinese huge economic transformations generated the opportunities for Li’s journey from athlete to businessman. As a result, the Chinese Communist Party heavily promoted the triumph of Li Ning in both stadiums and markets. The conclusions revisit the debate between determinism and free will and show how the life of Li can offer some insights into this discussion in the context of contemporary China.

From 1914 to 1957, athlete, author, and artist Harry Paschall entertained physical culturists with his striking images, wisdom, and wit. As a columnist and editor for Strength & Health, he gained notoriety for his pungent writing style and controversial views, enhanced by cartoons of Bosco, a superstrong hero who defends Paschall’s views on health, fitness, and weight training. Behind the scenes, however, suspicions always lurked that Paschall’s idealistic portrayals were not reality-based. Some suspected that Paschall harbored anti-Semitic sentiments and his articles were as much political statements as physical culture contributions. This perspective stems largely from Harry’s scathing portrayal of Bosco’s antithesis, Weedy Man, a caricature of training methods espoused by the rival Weider organization which stressed form rather function. By unpacking evidence of Harry Bosco’s life, it is possible to determine how much anti-Semitism, alcoholism, homophobia, and an unhealthy lifestyle played a role in his intemperate actions and death.

In 1977, the Canadian men’s national hockey team returned to international competition, marking the end of a controversial boycott launched in 1970 by Canadian ice hockey officials in protest of the International Ice Hockey Federation’s refusal to allow professionals to participate in international tournaments. However, Canada’s much-heralded presence at the 1977 World Championships in Vienna, Austria, was memorable for mostly the wrong reasons. The hastily assembled team of professionals finished fourth, out of medal contention, and engaged in repeated acts of brutality against its opponents. The team’s poor performance and unsportsmanlike conduct subsequently prompted Iona Campagnolo, the minister of state for Fitness and Amateur Sport, to commission a study on Canada’s role in international hockey. Drawing from archival diplomatic communications, this article explores the changing political and economic dynamics that shaped the series of negotiations and compromises that culminated in Canada’s return to international competition in 1977 and the fallout from its performance there. It argues that Canada’s return to the International Ice Hockey Federation’s World Championships in 1977 with a team of professionals marked a pivotal moment in the history of international hockey, further propelling the sport into a new era of commodification and accentuating the decline of the traditional amateur ideal—developments that consolidated the power of the National Hockey League in international hockey and over the Canadian men’s national team.

In this article, we review one iconic match in Fiji soccer history, the 1982 Inter-District Championship Final, when bad light stopped play after ten kicks each in the penalty shootout with penalty goals tied at 6–6. In interviews with ex-administrators and players from the match, we learn that Ba reneged upon a “gentlemen’s agreement,” between the two team presidents, not to turn up for any replay match scheduled for outside of Nadi, the original venue. Ba turned up at the replay venue and claimed the trophy much to the disgust of Nadi supporters and officials. Because the Indo-Fijian community “controls” coaching and administrative positions in soccer, it is able to fashion and refashion how Indigenous Fijian men’s bodies are presented and administered within the sport. Significantly, race and class combine to make it difficult for Indigenous ex-players to move into coaching and administrative positions in soccer postretirement.

Each Olympics, the American swimming team is comprised of swimmers from universities and club teams from across the country. California has produced elite swimmers since the first Olympics where US swimmers won a medal (1904), and its clubs and teams developed into national and international swimming powers in the post-World War II rejuvenation of the Olympics. This article investigates the ways the California Age Group swimming program shaped the American swimming culture as it rose to prominence in global competitions in the 1950s and 1960s, identifying the aquatic enterprise as an early iteration of youth sport as a serious, commercialized, and commodified pastime. Additionally, we explore how California Age Group swimming served as a site for young girls (and boys) to be a part of the American nationalist project in the post-war pre-Title IX era, an era when there were otherwise few sporting opportunities for girls.