Compelling insights on action sports communities resisting the all-dominating monolith with varying levels of success

Anna-Maria Strittmatter
Norwegian School of Sport Sciences & Örebro University

Expectations were high when I – being an action sports insider – got the newest book written by the most prominent action sport researchers in my hands. Unsurprisingly, this work did not only fully meet my expectations, but left me fascinated and inspired.

The book Action Sports and the Olympic Games: Past, Present, Future by Belinda Wheaton and Holly Thorpe is a brilliant work on the multifaceted issues, challenges and opportunities that action sports communities met when they were incorporated into the massive machinery of the Olympic Games. As expected, the authors provide comprehensive insights of subcultures in action sports and the changes they underwent through professionalization and sportification processes as a result of Olympic inclusion. Also, the readers get a detailed overview of the history and a well-needed update on the ever-changing governance structures in action sports.

But there is more to it: in addition, the book provides in-depth knowledge on the governance of the Olympic movement and decision-making processes within the International Olympic Committee (IOC) in general.

While the book appears like a bundle of many pieces that the authors have produced earlier on, Wheaton and Thorpe elegantly tie together ten years of extensive empirical research while also providing lots of new insights. By doing so, the authors advance knowledge on action sports and sport governance research on more general basis as well, including insights on:

• • processes of cultural accumulation;
  • organizational politics;
  • shifting governance modes, structures, and practices in national and international sports organizations as well as in the action sports industry;
  • cultural, economic, organizational, gendered, and environmental aspects of Olympic legacy;
  • roles and responsibilities of national sport federations on national and international level;
  • unintended consequences of sport disciplines incorporations into the Olympic program;
  • power of commercial agents to define and co-opt youth cultures;
  • application of various theories and different methods.

Especially the views from different stakeholders with different perspectives is a strength in this work.

In conclusion, the book Action Sports and the Olympic Games: Past, present and future by Belinda Wheaton and Holly Thorpe is a must read for action sports researchers and practitioners, as well as everyone interested in the governance of the Olympic movement.

Even though there were early contestants in the surf community, Wheaton and Thorpe found that core stakeholders in surfing had from the beginning been complicit in the process of Olympic inclusion from which they all stood to benefit.

Chapter 1 – Introducing action sports and the Olympic Games
The authors introduce the book with a thorough explanation of why and how action sports were included in the Olympic Games. By doing so, they touch upon various challenges that the International Olympic Committee (IOC) has faced connected to consumer market insights and the ageing demographic of Olympic viewers. With the introduction, Wheaton and Thorpe provide valuable knowledge on the IOC and innovations connected to their Agenda 2020 policies. They also set the scene for the challenges that evolved in and from the incorporation processes of action sports into the Olympic Games, which historically have had a fraught relationship.

Chapter 2 – Mapping action sports and the Olympic Games; theoretical and conceptual considerations
Chapter two gives an overview of the theoretical approaches that informed the authors’ work, most of which fall under the umbrella of critical theory. Positioning themselves as feminist sociologists, for Wheaton and Thorpe power is a central aspect in their research. More specifically. their research is informed by theoretical concepts following, i. a., Centre for Contemporary Cultural Studies (CCCS) and post-CCCS, Bordieu, Focault, as well as Actor Network Theory. The authors reflect over the strengths and weaknesses of different theoretical approaches when studying action sports (cultures), power relations and organizational networks. Pedagogically (which may be unintended) the chapter gives valuable explanation of how the above-mentioned theories can be applicable to a sporting context – knowledge which scholars and student could transfer to their own work.

Chapter 3 – Researching the action sports–Olympic Games assemblage: a longitudinal and multi-method approach
Chapter 3 provides an explanation of the methodological processes of their research that is included in this book. The authors introduce this chapter stating that it is their “longest running and most multi-dimensional project to date”. The longitudinal research that underpins this book spans the period from 2010-2020 including multiple projects. The projects document the various stages of action sports’ incorporation in the Olympic Games, from early inclusion of snowboarding, windsurfing and BMX racing through the period where also skateboarding, surfing and sport climbing were about to be included in the Olympic program for the Tokyo 2020 Summer Olympic Games. Wheaton and Thorpe explain their projects and methods structured in three different phases in which the authors conducted five different projects. They used different methods, such as media analysis, interviews, online questionnaire, focus groups, observations from symposiums. One extraordinarily insightful aspect in this chapter is the discussion of aspects in the research process, more precisely the highlighting of some of the “key challenges working with the IOC” and how this informed the research process from a feminist perspective.

Chapter 4 – The history of action sports and the Olympic Games
This chapter provides three case studies of the historical inclusion of three action sports into the Olympic Games: windsurfing, snowboarding and BMX.  The authors reveal power relations within and between the groups and organizations involved. Even though they are distinct sports, with unique characteristics based on their distinctive histories, identities and development patterns, the authors work out common patterns in their paths to Olympic inclusion. By doing so, the authors provide important contextual backgrounds which are necessary to understand the ever-changing power struggles which still are present in the various attempts to modernize the Olympic Games by including more action sports.

Chapter 5 – Agenda 2020 and the Tokyo announcement: initial responses and debates in action sport cultures
Chapter 5 presents initial responses and debates in action sport cultures at the time when the IOC Agenda 2020 was launched and surfing, skateboarding and sport climbing was shortlisted and included into the Tokyo 2020 Games. I applaud the authors for providing context on the Agenda 2020 and a detailed presentation of the path along which these three action sports were included, as well as how the inclusion was communicated by the IOC, with a solely positive rhetoric. Afterwards, the authors provide divergent attitudes to the inclusion of action sports in the Olympics displayed by different stakeholder groups, namely niche media, recreational action sports participants, and voices from the “core”. While the authors identified a lot of concerns, especially from the core cultural participants, they also found positive rhetoric that connect the Olympic inclusion of action sports to global diversity. Their longitudinal research approach makes these findings especially interesting as the reader can get an idea how actors dealt (and partly) resolved some of the critique and concerns in later phases.

Chapter 6 – Action sports and the politics of governance
In this chapter, the Wheaton and Thorpe provide a well written and well-balanced, though critical explanation of the challenges that have developed when the self-governing and industry-focused action sport organizations and federations need to comply to governance standards of the highly institutionalized, federative governance structure of the IOC and the Olympic Games. By doing so, the authors highlight the specific political processes and struggles that made surfing, skateboarding and sport climbing meet the Olympic governance expectations for the inaugural competitions during the Tokyo 2020 Games.

Chapter 7 – The action sports industry: a shifting landscape
In Chapter 7, the authors illustrate how the incorporation of action sports has changed the action sports industry. Here, Wheaton and Thorpe draw on transformations in media, events as well as athlete career trajectories. The authors illustrate how Olympic inclusion has enabled new opportunities for certain professions. However, they also show how the action sports industry suffered as non-cultural actors gained more power.

Chapter 8 – Skateboarding, the Olympics, and flexible opposition: the sportisation of the anti-sport
In chapter 8, Wheaton and Thorpe ask one of the core questions that have caused action sport researchers and practitioners lot of thoughts and concerns: How could skateboarding and Olympic Games become friends, when gthe latter has a strong history in anti-establishment and self-organizing values while the former is the most powerful sport establishment with rigorous, often non-negotiable rules and regulations? The authors show how the concerns were (partially) resolved through creative and strategic collaborations between IOC and key stakeholders in international skateboarding. Also, a shift in how cultural core participants shifted their perception of the image of the Olympic Games is discussed.

Chapter 9 – Surfing’s paradoxical journey from alternative lifestyle to Olympic sport
The authors argue that surfing’s articulation through the Olympics is a paradox. Even though there were early contestants in the surf community, Wheaton and Thorpe found that core stakeholders in surfing had from the beginning been complicit in the process of Olympic inclusion from which they all stood to benefit. The specific case of surfing in this chapter thus provides a valuable contribution to the literature, as it shows alternative paths and processes to the chapter on skateboarding.

Chapter 10 – Developing pathways to Tokyo: national differences in the professionalization of self-governing action sports
This chapter shows the impact of Olympic inclusion of action sports on the national level, and thus expands the literature which mostly has handled international governance perspectives. The authors handle impacts of institutionalization and professionalization on a range of stakeholders including national governing bodies, parents and athletes in Australia, Aotearoa, USA and China. Especially interesting in this chapter is the discussion of the unintended consequences of Olympic inclusion: the widening gap between nations and perpetuated pre-existing differences in opportunities for athletes.

Chapter 11 – Action sports and the opportunities and challenges for gender equity
This chapter is somewhat different than the others, but no less relevant. The choice of focusing one chapter specifically on gender equity is special; however, having followed the works and publications in the carriers of Belinda Wheaton and Holly Thorpe, this focus does not come as a surprise. The chapter builds on the IOC’s announcement that the Paris 2024 Games will achieve gender equality with women constituting 50 percent of the athletes. Here, too, the authors ask critical questions regarding the contradictions of the political goal of gender equality and women’s actual discrimination linked to the Olympic Games. In this chapter they provide insights into the male-dominated core informal networks perpetuating male privilege.

Chapter 12 – Conclusion
In their final chapter, the authors conclude by summing up their key findings. In an elegant way, they reflect on the different dimensions and issues connected to the change that the incorporation of action sports into the Olympics has brought both upon the IOC, the Olympic movements, the governance the action sports and the most important stakeholders: the action sports athletes.

Copyright © Anna-Maria Strittmatter 2023