The article tries to formulate statements about the tendencies of change of a globalizing world on the basis of the 120 years history of modern Olympic games. Surmising that international sport contests not only represent social changes, but also generate them. According to this line of argument, the results of Olympic games signify (i.e. generate) the long term process in which the exclusivity of Western discourses and representations are, along with the dominant position of the Western world itself, questioned. First, on the basis of the distribution of Olympic gold medals, three phases can be discerned in the history of changes in the international field of sport power. With the help of three examples, the article examines how successes in sport can serve as a tool for symbolic overinvestion (that is the so-called David-effect) for nations or groups of nations. Furthermore, emphasizing the attitudes during sporting, this study elaborates on the major elements of women’s participation in Olympic games. The analysis also outlines the major consequence of the institutionalization of the working of spectacular sports internationally, the process of hybridization and relativization of globalizing relations and meaning.

full text in Sic Itur ad Astra 62. (2011)