The Olympics and the Cold War, 1948-1968: Sport as Battleground in the U.S.-Soviet Rivalry

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For Olympic athletes, fans, and media alike, the Games often bring out the best that sport has to offer: unity, nationalism, friendly competition - and the potential for an upset. However, wherever international competition occurs, politics are never far from the front lines. Perhaps this was never truer than during the early Cold War, during which all interactions between the United States and the Soviet Union were treated as matters of life and death. This not only affected the Games themselves but each side tried to manipulate the International Olympic Committee behind the scenes.

Despite the IOC’s best efforts to keep the Olympics apolitical, they were drawn very quickly into this all-encompassing battle for supremacy, this time with the medal count as the ultimate prize. Both the Olympic Movement and the superpowers, as the Games gained greater social/political relevance from the shared fixation on the medal count while Moscow and Washington an exciting new arena for staging their battles for hearts and minds. Based on IOC, US government, and contemporary media sources, this book looks at six consecutive Olympiads to show just how high the stakes became once the Soviets began competing - and threatening America’s traditional athletic supremacy - in 1952.