Inside the Five Ring Circus: Changing Global Sports and the Modern Olympics

Inside The Five Ring Circus is a compelling, first-hand account of the personalities and process that allowed the Olympic Games and international sports to continue as the ultimate meeting-place for athletes from all nations on the Fields of Friendly Strife. Ollan tells the inside stories of the protest and boycott periods in Olympic history which saw black gloves appear on the victory stand of Mexico City ‘68 and vicious murders in the village in Munich '72, followed by boycotts for a twenty year period. He battled the pressure of Jimmy Carter’s efforts to keep Americans out of the Moscow Olympics and felt the threat of the White House for not supporting the boycott. Lloyd Cutler, Cather’s chief counsel, threatened to investigate him for carrying out his job of creating international sports competition with the USSR, Eastern bloc countries and the Cubans.

Performance enhancing drugs, like death, have been around since the ancient Olympics and remain with us today. The inside story of how we got to where we are is being brought to light for the first time. The attitude of many top officials to turn a blind eye only made the situation worse. Unafraid of the wrath of the IOC, USOC or international federations, Ollan took on the task of coordinating the USA team for the Goodwill Games, founded by Ted Turner. This highly-successful competitions provided new avenues of promotion used today by all international sports. Ted was a visionary and backed it up with his money and television network.