Modern Olympics DBQ

The modern Olympics was also progressively becoming shaped by economic interests as shown by documents 5, 7, and 9. The Olympics offered the prospect of great economic prosperity and commercial gain to companies that sponsored them and to countries that hosted them. The mayor of Tokyo, Ryotaro Azuma, explains in document 5 that the Olympic Games of 1964, which Japan hosted, helped the country recover economically from their defeat in World War II and eventually grow as a world trade power. This was beneficial to international trade and encouraged other countries that upon seeing Japan’s gain from playing host to the Olympics may have desired a similar rise in trade and economic influence. The Olympics were a means of improving a country’s economy …show more content…
These factors continue to influence the games today and they are constantly evolving as time progresses. In order to more fully comprehend the factors that helped shape the Olympic Games in the 20th century, an additional document such as a male competitor’s opinion of having females perform in the Olympic Games. This document could show the opinion of a male athlete and could be compared to the opinion of Hassiba Boulmerka (Document 8) and with document 2 to produce a more complete assessment of the social factors, in particular, that shaped the modern Olympics. Another document that would be helpful in assessing the factors shaping the modern Olympics could be a document containing views on the Olympics from ordinary middle class citizens in various host countries. Middle class citizens probably would be able to give a reliable idea of what the Olympics are like and could describe major elements that impact the games. The opinion of an ordinary citizen would be valuable especially since all the other documents contain the words and thoughts of Olympic athletes, officials and other influential people and