believe that events for women should be eliminated from the Games, but this group is now a minority. There is still, however, a well grounded protest against events which are not truly feminine, like putting a shot, or those too strenuous for most of the opposite sex, such as distance runs.”43 These opinions were very much in tune with those emerging from the IOC. The General Session minutes from the April 1953 meeting in Mexico City read—under the heading of “Reducing the number of athletes and officials”—that “women not to be excluded from the Games, but only participation in ‘suitable’ sports.”44 Some within the IOC claimed that limiting women’s sports was a way to cut costs in the face of an emerging concern with “gigantism.” They argued that the Olympics were becoming too big and unwieldy—and that slicing women’s sports could slim down the Games.
Sometimes the mainstream press could be even more extreme. In 1953, Arthur Daley wrote in the New York Times that he would entertain the idea of eliminating women from the Olympics entirely. “There’s just nothing feminine or enchanting about a girl with beads of perspiration on her alabaster brow, the result of grotesque contortions in events totally unsuited to female architecture,” he wrote. “It’s probably boorish to say it,” he conceded, “but any self-respecting schoolboy can achieve superior performances to a woman champion.” Boorish indeed, but Daley wasn’t finished: “The Greeks knew exactly what they were doing when they invented the Olympics … Not only did they bar the damsels from competing but they wouldn’t even admit them as spectators.” He cautioned: “Don’t get me wrong, please. Women are wonderful. But when those delightful creatures begin to toss the discus or put the shot—well, it does something to a guy. And it ain’t love, Buster.”45
Such commentary from prominent journalists notwithstanding, more and more women were participating in the Games, and from countries that did not necessarily have strong Olympic histories. The Soviet Union helped jump-start participation of female athletes in the 1950s as the athletic arena became a proxy for international tension. Soviet involvement would also play a role in the emergence and maintenance of another alternative to the IOC’s Games: the Workers’ Olympiads.
Workers of the World, Exert!
In 1928 the Baron wrote, “I have been delighted to see labor organizations embrace the Olympic ideal.” He may have been subconsciously tipping his hat to the working-class athletes who were organizing a vibrant alternative to the Olympics.46 The International Workers’ Olympiads heralded a fresh ethos that blended sport with solidarity, socialism, cooperation, and working-class tradition.47 More about healthy lifestyles and class opportunity than hyper-competition and elites, the Workers’ Games pushed back against the nationalism plaguing the established Olympics; they were meant to circumvent prejudice and jingoism while undermining the growing fixation on record-breaking performances by superstar athletes. People of all races, ethnicities, and genders were welcome to take part. Organized primarily by European socialists, the Workers’ Olympiads took place in 1925 (Frankfurt), 1931 (Vienna), and 1937 (Antwerp), before World War II put an end to the experiment. Labor activists also staged Winter Workers’ Olympiads in those years, in Germany, Austria, and Czechoslovakia.
In 1936 another socialist-inspired alternative to the Olympics was scheduled, the People’s Olympiad in Barcelona, but it was canceled by the July outbreak of the Spanish Civil War. Nevertheless, a June letter of invitation from the Olimpíada Popular de Barcelona to the Amateur Athletic Union in the US captures the spirit of the Workers’ Games movement: “The object of the Peoples’ Olympiad is to unite in friendly competition the sportsmen of all countries, regardless of race, and thus to give a practical demonstration of the true Olympic spirit—the fraternity of races and peoples.” The letter continued, “In the struggle against fascism the broad masses of all countries must stand shoulder to shoulder, and Popular Sport is a valuable medium through which they may demonstrate their international solidarity.”48 Implicit in this invitation was the recognition that sport was no mere opium of the masses, but rather a powerful lever for political consciousness.
In the interwar years, the International Workers’ Olympiads were an important part of the labor movement.49 Thanks to the restrictive definition of amateurism enforced by the IOC, many workers were simply ineligible for the Games. But workers’ sports clubs—some with roots stretching back to the 1890s—provided laborers and their families an outlet for physical engagement in numerous countries from Czechoslovakia to Canada. In contrast to the ingrained elitism of the IOC, these sports clubs championed the democratization of sport, encouraging all to take part regardless of skill level or class background.50 In 1920, trade unionists founded the Socialist Worker Sports International (SWSI), also called the Lucerne Worker Sports International, or LSI, because the congress took place in Lucerne, Switzerland. The SWSI assumed a prime leadership role in organizing the Workers’ Olympiads.51
The first Workers’ Olympiad was staged at Frankfurt in 1925. The four-day affair featured 150,000 participants from nineteen countries. Unlike the “bourgeois Olympics” in Antwerp (1920) and Paris (1924), where the defeated nations from World War I (Germany and Austria) were not invited, the Workers’ Games welcomed all comers. And if one wanted to compete in a sport, participating in the cultural festival was mandatory. So participants played their sports, but they also sang and acted. The opening ceremony featured a 1,200-person choir. Later, 60,000 people staged a performance called “Worker Struggle for the Earth.” The opening and awards ceremonies replaced national flags with red flags and national anthems with “The Internationale.” The motto for these Games was “no more war.” The Olympiad was largely considered a success, although it suffered from the sectarianism that plagued wider relations on the left; disagreements between the SWSI and the communist Red Sport International (RSI) led to the exclusion of the latter. Worker sport organizations were forced to choose one side or the other.52 As William Murray notes, “Both bodies ran their own sports meetings, often dedicated, like their stadiums, to heroes from the socialist past, but they neither competed with nor against each other.”53
The second Workers’ Olympiad took place at Vienna in 1931. Approximately 80,000 worker-athletes from twenty-three nations participated. To boost attendance, organizers dovetailed the Games with the Socialist and Labour International’s fourth congress. The Games featured a separate festival of sport for kids, as well as art shows and running and swimming events for the masses. Some 65,000 people attended the final match of the soccer tournament, while 12,000 went to the cycling finals and 3,000 went to the water polo title match. On the final day of the Games, a crowd estimated at 250,000 watched a “festive march” consisting of approximately 100,000 athletes.54 The socialist government in Vienna built a new stadium for the Olympiad, complete with an athletic field, bike track, and swimming pool, at a cost of $1 million. Locker rooms were constructed to accommodate the thousands of athletes who took part.55 According to Robert Wheeler, the Vienna Olympiad “was in many ways the high point of the workers’ sports movement,” and “compared favorably or better with the 1932 Olympics in Lake Placid and Los Angeles.”56
In 1936 the Republican government in Spain planned a People’s Olympiad as a counterpoint to the 1936 Berlin Olympics, or “Nazi Games.” The Comitè Català Pro-Esport Popular led the planning with the intention of creating a hybrid Games for worker athletes as well as IOC-sanctioned athletes who wished to boycott the Berlin Games for political reasons. The organizers set up a three-tier system for participants: elite athletes, almost-elite athletes, and recreational athletes from worker sport clubs. Funding came from the Spanish central government, the Catalan autonomous government, Barcelona City Hall, and the Popular Front government in France. Numerous art exhibitions were scheduled. The Catalan writer Josep Maria de Sagarra supplied the lyrics for the Olimpíada Popular hymn, and the German musician Hans Eisler wrote the orchestration. Unlike the IOC, People’s Olympiad organizers allowed for the participation of athletes from Algeria and Morocco, despite their colonial status, and afforded nation status to Catalonia, Euskadi (Basque country), and Galicia. A contingent of Canadians planned to attend, as did Palestinian athletes and worker-athletes
