Athlete-cantered Sport: A Relatively New and Progressive Concept of Contemporary Era

Abstract

Athlete-cantered sport is currently presented as a relatively new and
progressive concept (Clarke, 1994, Kidd, 1996). However,
examination of the Olympic Idea, which has been the very essence of
the Modern Olympic Movement since its inception, reveals that
Olympism has always held the harmonious development of humans
in the sporting context as a central principle. The socio-political
climate in which the Olympic Games and the International Olympic
Committee have developed in the last century has led to a marginalization
of the athlete. Concerns with commercialisation, television
broadcasting rights, political agenda, event marketing and a number
of other administrative issues dominate the text in the pages of the
Olympic Charter and the bulk of IOC activity. It is in this climate then,
that the current concept of athlete-cantered programming is seen as
something "new", when it in fact is an attempt to reclaim the essence
of Olympism