Performance Sport and Performance Athletes ??? Analyses from the Viewpoint of the Social Sciences

These magic Olympic symbols and their message are communicated all over the world, worshipped by millions of people. These symbols not only imply, as intended by Baron de Coubertin, the very meaning and ideal of sport but also the possibility for the transformation of sport into something other than the founders of the Olympic Games had envisioned. Describing sport in another context, Hans Gunther Prescher symptomatically asks through the title of his book: “Sport — Segen oder Fluch unserer Epoche?” (1961) (Blessing or Curse of our Epoch?) while Philip Goodhart and Christopher Chataway label their book on international sport: “War Without Weapons” (1968).