06 October, 2013

Why "Rethinking Athletics"?


First of all, let me state clearly that the title is a plagiarism. When preparing an article for "New Studies in Athletics" I run across a reference to A. Juilland's book "Rethinking Track and Field".



I looked for the book and managed not only to find it but also to discover a treasure trove of old sports books in Paris, Mémoire du Sport, where one can find rare, out of print, books on sports and in particular on athletics.

The leitmotiv of the book of Juilland is that we must change the way we are doing athletics if we wish to make the discipline again attractive to spectators. While my ideas are less revolutionary that those of Juilland, I, too, feel that it's high time some things changed. All the more so since the current technology makes these changes possible. Thus, and as a tribute to the genius of Juilland, I decided to plagiarise his title. 

I have been, over the past years, contributing articles to "New Studies in Athletics". However there are many instances where the subject does not justify a full article and where a few paragraphs can cover it in a satisfactory way. The idea of an athletics blog came after I had an enriching experience in blogging on another passion of mine: pinballs. Thus "Rethinking Athletics" was born. Next comes the most difficult part: keep the blog alive and make it attractive.

No comments:

Post a Comment