This encyclopedia highlights more than 40 Olympic sports. Alongside both historic and recent photographs, readers will learn about the basics of each competition, its origin, how it has changed throughout the years, and the icons in each sport. In addition, this book provides information about the Paralympics. Features include a glossary, additional resources, and an index. Aligned to Common Core Standards and correlated to state standards. Abdo Reference is an imprint of Abdo Publishing, a division of ABDO.

This unique book provides information on the events surrounding the Olympics, such as political controversies, scandals, tragedies, economic issues, and peripheral incidents.

Traces the history of the modern Olympics from 1896 to 2000, contrasting the ideal of the game with the often politicized reality.

Revised & updated, this new edition offers a comprehensive account of the modern Olympic movement, including the political side of the tournament. Coverage of planning for the 2008 Summer Olympics is included.

The turmoil surrounding the 1980 Olympic Games, says the author, was nothing new--it was merely the most recent, and most complex, manifestation of the political content of modern sport. Despite the mythology perpetrated by Olympic publicists, the modern Olympic Games were founded with expressly political goals in mind and continue to thrive on tie

For more than a millennium, the ancient Olympics captured the imaginations of the Greeks, until a Christianized Rome terminated the competitions in the fourth century AD. But the Olympic ideal did not die and this book is a succinct history of the ancient Olympics and their modern resurgence. Classics professor David Young, who has researched the subject for over 25 years, reveals how the ancient Olympics evolved from modest beginnings into a grand festival, attracting hundreds of highly trained athletes, tens of thousands of spectators, and the finest artists and poets.