Selling The Five Rings

The only volume available that explores the winter games as a whole, The Winter Olympics is invaluable reading for understanding the movement's roots as well as the contemporary issues surrounding the Games. The 2002 Olympic Winter Games were an extravaganza of global proportions, yet the winter games have not always enjoyed such favor or prominence. Dating retroactively to 1924 but not officially part of the Olympic program until 1928, the winter games have had an uneasy history. For the first fifty years controversies raged continually over whether the commercialism and professionalism in skiing, ice skating, and hockey were compatible with the Olympic ideal of amateurism and even whether winter sports should continue to be part of the Olympic program of international sport. Avery Brundage, president of the IOC from 1952 to 1972, was an outspoken critic of what he called the "Frostbite Follies." Opposition to the Winter Olympics was so great that the IOC Executive Board in 1964 considered eliminating the Games but eventually voted to continue them only through 1972.

Larry Gerlach is professor of history at the University of Utah. He lives in Salt Lake City, Utah