Associate professor, Ph.D. O.N. Batsina
Associate professor, Ph.D. F.D. Mukhamityanov
Ph.D. N.V. Batakova
Tchaikovsky State Institute of Physical Culture, Tchaikovsky

Keywords: Olympism, educational concept of Olympism, Olympic ideas of Pierre de Coubertin, modern Olympic movement, Olympic education in youth sport.

Introduction. In recent years there has been an increasing number of studies on the educational aspect of Olympism – Olympic education and training, among which are the works of V.I. Stolyarov, L.I. Lubysheva, I.V. Barinov, A. Tomenko, N. Yermak, Yu.M. Chernetsky, E.V. Divinskaya et al.  

The purpose of the research was to analyze the reasons for the low potential of youth sport and development of educational recommendations to improve the effectiveness of educational work with junior athletes basing on Olympic education.  

Research methodology. The notion of Olympism as an educational concept was first presented to the public at a lecture at the Sorbonne dedicated to the five-year anniversary of the French Athletics Federation (USFSA) in 1892 [4]. There are a number of issues requiring discussions with regard to the development of Olympism and the Olympic movement in Russia.

Why did Olympism initially represent mainly an educational concept of using sport? It seems that it is first of all connected with the personality of Pierre de Coubertin and the “dominant idea of life” he dedicated himself to. His interest in the history and philosophy of ancient Greece, the ideas of Thomas Arnold determined his orientation at the ideas of humanism in search of the ideal of human perfection a new system of education and training should be guided by.

       In the 1880s a keen struggle broke out in France between two approaches to improving the system of school physical education on the part of the Union of physical education and military training societies with paramilitary physical training and the National League for Physical Education, in the following years called the Committee for the Propaganda of Physical Education, the main idea of which was the sportization process of the physical education system, that was able to prove that restructuring of the system of physical education could not be separated from the development of sports activity.  However, according to Coubertin, for the sport to fulfill its educational function, it was to be humanized [3]. Exchange of opinions with the sports communities from different countries confirmed that one of the main obstacles to the spread of sport is the closed nature of national systems of physical education and national prejudices. In this regard, one of the achievements of Coubertin is the fact that the ideas of Olympism reached beyond the narrow national system of physical education of France.

What are the basic ideas of the educational concept of Olympism of Coubertin? V.I. Stolyarov noted the uncertainty and ambiguity of interpretation of Olympism and its ideals, the abundance of terms and the polysemy of their explanations [5]. Due to this we see understanding of the idea of the Coubertin’s educational concept of Olympism in the form of short messages:

1. Social progress is movement to humanism via education – “renewal of humanity by means of education”. Sport is an important tool of education.
2. The Olympic Games and the Olympic movement are forms that can meet the challenges of building a better world by educating young people by means of sport.    
3. The aspects of sports activity are as follows: external (competition, rivalry, aspiration to improve one’s status) and internal (self-improvement). Competition results stimulate an athlete to improve various aspects of athletic training based on the mental cognitive processes associated with them, volitional and personal qualities.  
4. The influence of sport on the personality of a man is ambivalent and depends on which aspect of sports activity the society, sports community, the athlete and his tutor focus on. “Sport – Coubertin wrote – can stimulate the noblest and the most sordid passions. It can incite both altruism and honesty, and love of gain; it can be chivalrous and corrupt, cruel and humane”.
5. The impact of sports activity on the athlete’s personality can be positive provided a number of conditions present:

firstly, the existence and implementation of the humanistic model of sport. Developing the notion of bringing to perfection an ideal, harmoniously developed man, it came to Coubertin’s mind to revive the Olympic Games and the Olympic movement, participants and organizers of which make it their main goal to use sports as means of humanistic education and individual improvement. “Olympism – Coubertin wrote – tends to bring together, as in a beam of light, all those moral principles which promote human perfection”.

“The important thing is not winning but taking part. Victory is great, but noble competition is greater”. This principle is one of the main ideas of Olympism: it is not a victory over an opponent that should be considered the aim of sports, but a victory over oneself, manifested in moving towards perfection. Every step to perfection is an improvement of a competitive achievement, and this is where real victory is, a victory over oneself in the first place. A competition, especially with a strong opponent, is a very powerful incentive for the mobilization of abilities and their fullest manifestation. Opponents’ desire to demonstrate their abilities in a noble competition with each other mutually encourages them to progress towards perfection. Great skills of defense of an athlete (a team) encourage his opponent to show great skills of attack. This process is cyclic, and each cycle raises the skill of those competing to a new, higher level, realizing the desire of athletes and materializing the idea Coubertin associated the concept of “Olympism” with [1];

secondly, the humanistic model of sport assumes there is an ideal athlete with humanistic values those training are aspiring to. The main value of an athlete is the harmonious development of his physicality and spirituality. It is most succinctly formulated in the words of Coubertin: “a healthy mind in a healthy body” by which he characterized an ideal personality of an athlete [2]. Intensive exercising and high achievements in sport should not lead to a one-sided, ugly development of an individual. An Olympian, an Olympic athlete should harmoniously combine physical perfection with high spiritual culture.

How are ideas of Coubertin related to the reality of the modern Olympic movement? V.I. Stolyarov notes that the work of explaining and promoting the Olympic ideals more and more clearly reveals a contradiction between the real orientation of the participants of the Olympic movement to the pragmatic values and humanistic ideals and values, which are proclaimed in the Olympic philosophy [5].

In the modern Olympic perception, according to A.G. Egorov, pragmatic and romantic trends are cultural oppositions that determine the spiritual dynamics of the Olympic movement [2]. For romantics modern sport is in deep crisis (amorality, technocratism, doping, subcultural isolationism, commerce, violence), and hence a skeptical view of the sport and radical projects of its transformation (integration with art, refusal of competition and record-setting) exists. For pragmatics there is no crisis in sport: as a show business sport is booming, providing incomparable entertainment; economic efficiency of sport is obvious, as it is a barometer of the inseparable unity of sponsorship and advertising; finally, no visible signs of declining of social prestige of sport and corresponding status of athletes are observed. The problem of the balance of humanism and technocratism in sport is so far resolved in such a way that technocratism aiming at achieving sports results at all costs definitely prevails.   

Is this contradiction resolved by means of the Olympic education development?  One of the ways to solve this problem is “promotion of the Olympic spirit”. To realize this task the International Olympic Academy was founded in 1961 affiliated with the IOC, responsible for the implementation of educational and training tasks of the Olympic movement. The Olympic education started to develop in a number of countries in the mid-70s of the XX century under the auspices of national Olympic committees and academies. V.I. Stolyarov, V.V. Stolbov, V.S. Rodichenko, I.V. Barinova, Yu.A. Prokopchuk, V.I. Samusenkova, O.I. Samusenkov, N.V. Pechersky, A.A. Suchilin, G.F. Petlevanny, A.A. Isaev, G.M. Polikarpova, K.N. Efremenkov and other authors have been developing theoretical and methodological foundations of the Olympic education in Russia since the end of 1980s. All the authors highlight the importance and necessity of humanizing educational activities, pay attention to the humanistic nature of the concepts of Olympism which is an important factor in the comprehensive development of man not only by its social nature but also by goal sets. Scientists and professionals suggest a wide variety of Olympic education and training systems, recognizing the objective need to solve high-priority educational issues.    

V.I. Stolyarov, stressing the importance of the Olympic education, particularly of children and youth, notes that it is not an increase of the Olympic knowledge level that is most important, and not the declaratively proclaimed orientation to the ideals and values of Olympism, but formation of actual behavior, a lifestyle that corresponds to these ideals and values [5].

Results and discussion. However, the situation with the introduction of the Olympic ideals and values into the actual behavior of junior athletes gives rise to concern.   

We see several reasons for this situation:

firstly, analysis of educational systems of Youth Sports Schools shows that while the Olympic education is adequately presented in the general education system, it is quite insufficiently realized in supplementary education related to sport. The need to ensure one’s pupils achieve high sports results leads to the fact that a trainer in his work, in particular while attempting to form and develop the motivational sphere of an athlete, follows the path where the Olympic ideals are neglected and, as a consequence, lose value;

secondly, it is of concern that no sufficient attention is paid to tutorial work in the curricula of sports schools in connection with the adoption of the federal state requirements to the minimum of content, structure and terms of implementation of supplementary pre-professional programs in the field of physical culture;

thirdly, there is a lack of motivational incentives for coaching related with the comprehensive development of the personality of a junior athlete, as the salary level is often determined by athletic performance results of athletes.

Conclusion. In order to enhance the educational work in youth sport the basic provisions of the Olympic education should be used: 

• to provide an environment that fosters the development of the sports and humanistic culture of an individual, formation of a positive attitude, inclusion of sports-related humanistic ideals and values into the learning and developmental activities;    
• to direct the activity of sports educators at ensuring and filling the content of tutorial work in order to form the following:

a cognitive component – formation of knowledge about the ideals and values of humanism, the Olympic Games and the Olympic movement, their history, goals and objectives;

an emotional component – formation of an appropriate system of feelings and emotional reactions (for example, a sense of social responsibility for the realization of the Olympic ideals and values in sports and by means of sports);

a behavioral component – realization of the Olympic ideals and values of behavior in sports.

• to intensify efforts to explain and form the behavior of junior athletes based on complying with the principle of fair play;
• to create conditions for a humanistic comprehensive development of a personality of a junior athlete.

References

1. Barinov, S.Yu. Olimpiyskoe obrazovanie v protsesse vospitaniya sportivno-gumanisticheskoy kul'tury lichnosti (Olympic education for training of sports and humanistic personal culture) / S.Yu. Barinov // Uch. zap. un-ta im. P.F. Lesgafta. – St. Peterburg. – 2010. – № 8 (66). – P.7–13.
2. Egorov, A.G. Mnogoobrazie olimpizma i dinamika olimpiyskogo obrazovaniya (Olympic diversity and dynamics of Olympic education) / A.G. Egorov, K.N. Efremenkov, G.F. Petlevanny // Teoriya i Praktika Fizicheskoy Kul'tury. – 2000. – № 9. – P. 25–42.
3. Korolev R.I. Interpretatsii ideala «sovershennogo» cheloveka v kontseptsiyakh sovremennogo olimpizma: avtoref. dis. ... kand. kulturologii (Interpretation of the ideal of a "perfect" man in the concepts of modern Olympism: abstract of Ph.D. thesis) / R.I. Korolev. – Moscow, 2009. – 25 P.
4. Kun, L. Vseobshchaya istoriya fizicheskoy kultury i sporta (General History of Physical Culture and Sport) / L. Kun. – Moscow: Raduga, 1982. – 399 P.

Corresponding author: tchaik.nauka@mail.ru