Western-Centrism in Olympic Studies and its Consequences in the 2008 Beijing Olympics

Resumo

The Beijing 2008 Olympic Games will be only the third time the Olympic Summer
Games have been held outside the West and its former colonies, after Tokyo 1964 and Seoul
1988. If one adds the 1972 Sapporo and 1998 Nagano Winter Games, these will be the fifth
Olympic Games outside the West. China in 2008 is arguably the least Westernized nation to
yet host the Olympic Games. It will also be the first East Asian country to hold the Games
that is not host to U.S. military bases. When measured by the numbers of Westerners who
will be in China, it will be the greatest-ever meeting of East and West in peacetime. The
Beijing Olympics mark the moment when the most populous nation in the world, and the one
that is located farthest from the political centres of the West both geographically and
culturally, becomes incorporated into the global system more than ever before in human
history.