Introduction

Pushing the limits of one's abilities is both a personal undertaking and an experience common to all sporting endeavors. There could therefore be as many definitions of "sports" as there are athletes. All sports, however, share one need: rules that establish a fair framework within which to place performances. This basic principle is the only connection between Olympiads of Antiquity, which had an essentially religious nature, and the "physical culture" of the 19th century, considered a form of training and education. The notion of pleasure, without which today's athletes -- including professionals -- could not reach the highest levels, gradually came to the fore over the course of the 20th century.

A number of factors led to the emergence of modern sports. The British were largely responsible for setting structures; the modernization of performance measurement led to the creation and keeping of records; and the birth of the Olympic movement was a key event in popularizing sports and games. In more recent times, the social and economic impact of sport has grown considerably thanks to an explosion in media coverage. A massive infusion of money has encouraged the circulation of funds from organizations to team owners, and finally to the athletes themselves. In the current sports environment, the interests of athletes, sponsors, and broadcasters are tightly linked and dependent on viewer ratings.

***

In the late 19th century, Baron Pierre de Coubertin, an active proponent of the benefits of physical exercise, decided to bring the modern Olympics to life. The Games were to be founded on a democratic search for perfection -- a concept inherited from the ancient games. De Coubertin was responsible for the creation of the International Olympic Committee (IOC) by the Congrès de Paris in June 1894, and the first Games of the modern era were played in 1896 in Athens, Greece. Although special stamps were issued along with government funding, it took the assistance of a Russian millionaire (George Avenarius) for the stadium to be finished on time. The opening ceremonies took place before an audience of 70,000 -- public enthusiasm was spectacular -- and 311 athletes from 14 countries competed in nine events.

De Coubertin played a major role in the Olympic organization. He chaired the IOC until 1925, writing the Olympic Charter and Protocol, the athletes' oath, and the protocol for the opening and closing ceremonies. He took part in all decisions and devoted all his energy to developing the spirit of the modern Olympics according to his ideals. For him, the athletes' commitment to convey, through competition, "their concept of honor and impartiality regarding sport to the same degree as their physical training" provided an example of the kind of harmony that would transcend narrow nationalism and individual glory.

The Olympic symbols and ceremony protocols that de Coubertin created include:

• The Olympic motto: Citius (swifter), altius (higher), fortius (stronger). Borrowed from a French cleric, the words refer to the struggle to outdo oneself, the desire and courage needed in competition, and the three basic activities in track and field: running, jumping, and throwing.

• The Olympic emblem, which appears on the Olympic flag. There are five interlacing rings, which symbolize the five continents and the friendship that unites all people on Earth. Each nation has at least one of the colors of the Olympic flag on its own flag.

***

Today, sport is an international cultural phenomenon, conveying the social values of fame and success. Many commercial brands try to take advantage of the Olympics' prestigious image. Sports, broadcast live throughout the world, have gone beyond national borders by transforming their financing from gate receipts to revenues from television and sponsors. This globalization has resulted in a consolidation of structures to form a complex network linking sports institutions, athletes' agents, commercial partners (usually manufacturers), and broadcasters. The two major currents of modern sport, amateurism (exemplified by the Olympics) and professionalism, have merged. Seeking larger audiences, and thus a source of greater revenues, many sports are changing to make broadcasting easier. The choices of sites and dates and competition formats are being changed to adapt to laws of the marketplace, and the Olympic movement has not escaped this transformation.

The 1960 Olympics marked a turning point, with the sale of television rights. Since then, the number of competitions has grown steadily, audiences have expanded considerably, and private sponsors seeking greater visibility have been increasingly attracted to the Games. The ever-growing popularity of professional sports has meant record-setting in the professional arena where, in many cases, the athletes are the best. The Olympics officially abandoned amateurism in 1981, and commercial exploitation of the Olympic symbols was authorized in 1986. These two decisions by the IOC led to an explosion in revenues, and other events of global interest (World Cup soccer, Formula 1 racing, and tennis and golf tournaments, to name a few) followed suit. The biggest sports events are now retransmitted to more than 200 countries, have viewers numbering in the billions, and generate revenues in the many hundreds of millions of dollars.

***

This full-scale entry of sport into the world of showbiz and high performance has not been without its problems. The use of doping substances to improve performances is just one example. The public's identification with athletes is based on the principle of transparency: exploits are achieved in front of a huge number of spectators. For viewers, this corresponds, legitimately, to a guarantee of truth and reality, but it places athletes in a contradictory position. Their income is based on the marketability of their results: as long as they are a profitable investment, the sky's the limit. The objective of the athlete's employers or sponsors is to reduce the uncertainty associated with athletic endeavor so that they can predict the economic returns. Athletes must therefore provide reliable performances, even though the constant increase in effort required pushes them ever closer to the natural limits of the human body.

Forced to stake out a clear position, international authorities count on anti-doping controls to settle questions of contested performances. Beyond this official and dominant current of thought, however, there have been a few notable initiatives in different directions. The International Powerlifting Federation, for instance, keeps sets of records in two categories: with drug testing, and without drug testing.

Nevertheless, a new type of elite athlete seems to have sprung up precisely to defy the constraints of contemporary sport; these athletes can both meet the obligation to produce results and handle media pressure. Alain Prost in Formula 1, Michael Jordan in basketball, Wayne Gretzky in ice hockey, and Greg Norman in golf, for example, in spite of the enormous expectations placed upon them, became legendary for their ability to stay at the top of their game over exceptionally long careers. By accumulating the most prestigious titles in their sports, they became models whose influence extends beyond sport.

Meanwhile, there has been spectacular growth in the popularity of -"extreme" sports. The highly acrobatic aspects of these newcomers is indicative of a desire for discovery of new forms of self-expression and independence from the established models. Even at the elite level, the new events are performed in a spontaneous and risk-taking style. The objective is less to guarantee a result than to provide entertainment. To a great extent the oldest disciplines -- including track and field -- have profited from this iconoclastic movement. They have thus managed to attract new viewers who appreciate the pure beauty of motion a