The practice of hiring foreign coaches to lead national teams has been on the rise and is especially visible at the Olympic Games. It has been criticised in both the receiving and the lending countries as a breach of patriotic duty. In a recent publication I defended expatriate coaching as a morally unobjectionable practice with many beneficial effects. In this article, I extend my defence of expatriate coaching into the realm of the Olympic Games. I argue that when articulated from (...) the perspective of moderate patriotism this practice is not only compatible with Olympism, the philosophical vision that underpins the Olympic movement, but also that it enacts and advances the tenets of this vision. In the process, I provide a coherent explanation for the Olympic authorities' lack of an official stance on expatriate coaching and reflect on their disparate stand on the nationality of coaches and athletes. (shrink)

This paper presents some of the background to the development of the Youth Olympic Games, the principles underlying them, and some of the practical challenges in implementing them. Regarding the sports programme, modifications from the Olympic Games programme are noted, and innovations examined in terms of underlying values, such as immaturity and harm, talent identification and early specialisation, and the exploitation of young athletes. Issues arising from the first edition of the YOG include participation and equality of opportunity, selection of (...) sports and nations for the programme, age and fairness, age falsification and cheating, victory and defeat, participation and excellence, and political discrimination, peace and international understanding. The paper concludes that, although many of the above issues present already-existing challenges for the Olympic movement, albeit in a novel form, there were also some novel issues thrown up by a ?youth? edition of the Olympic Games, and many of the ethical and other value questions raised have much wider applications and consequences. It is to be hoped that ethical issues arising out of the YOG will provide a fresh impetus towards discussions as to the nature and promotion of ethical sport. (shrink)

A key goal in the Olympic value system of Olympism is the all-round cultivation of the individual. According to its so-called ?fundamental principles?, Olympism is a ?philosophy of life? with ideals of ?exalting and combining in a balanced whole the qualities of body, will, and mind? and creating ?a way of life based on the joy of effort?. These goals are to be reached by blending sport with culture and education. Olympism is often criticised for idealism and lack of impact (...) in real life. At the same time Olympic ideals are intuitively appealing and have rhetorical force. The Olympic athlete stands at the very centre of the ideology. This paper examines the possibility of critical examination of Olympic ideals in terms of three different understandings of the athlete. A dualist understanding sees the athlete as divided between body and mind and with the body as a means towards the cultivation of the mind. Within this understanding Olympic ideals make little sense. A phenomenological approach attempts to overcome a dualist scheme with an understanding of the athlete as ?embodied intentionality?. This seems fertile in an examination of Olympic ideals but can be criticised for lack of contextual sensitivity. A third perspective points towards the athlete as a social construction who can be fully understood only by examining the more extensive socio-cultural context of which the athlete is a part. The contextual understanding adds critical force to Olympic analyses but seems to lack conceptual tools to examine the vision of athletes as responsible moral agents. In conclusion the complementary functions of the three perspectives are emphasised for a proper study of Olympic ideals. (shrink)