ABSTRACT
This chapter addresses a number of issues relating to the ideological content of Olympism and the extent to which it can usefully function as a progressive set of ideals and practices in our climate of late capitalist, postcolonial modernity. It explores the extent to which sport, and in particular the Olympics, makes possible moments when we are able to transcend our seemingly natural identity skins of racial ascription and national belonging. The chapter suggests that discussions on cosmopolitanism may offer analytical insight into the continued fascination with and contestation over the modern Olympic Games. The Olympics is constructed as a space beyond the real world concerns of political antagonism, national chauvinism and racial contestation. Humanism, far from challenging European imperialistic expansion and colonial control, actually provided one of the main philosophical justifications for racial terror and exploitation. The social structures of imperialism and the popular and scientific representations that structured colonial relationships produced powerful constructions of black people as sub-human.
