Volume 12, Issue 1

This article examines how coaches in elite sports handle conflicts and attempt to resolve them strategically, that is, with the overarching goal of achieving athletic success. We take as our starting point Messmer's conflict theory, which is rooted in systems theory and distinguishes between is sue-specific conflicts, relationship conflicts, and power conflicts, and analyze authentic examples of conflicts from die sports of handball and hockey based on empirical data comprising video and audio recordings of coach-athlete communicadon during training and competitions as well as interviews with coaches and adiletes. The results of tiiese analyses form the basis for recommendations to coaches on effective means of conflict resolution.

The Olympic Games are not only a sports competition, but can also be viewed as a form of wasteful competition between nation-states for intangible goods such as international attention, legitimacy, and prestige (Werron, 2012). In this competition, medal counts play a central role. Medal counts trigger a form of indirect competition between nations “for people, for the acclamation of national and international audiences” (Simmel, 1908, p. 287). Indirect competition between nations is repeated at regular intervals despite the International Olympic Committee’s explicit position that Olympic competitions are between athletes and not between nations (IOC, 2011). In the Olympic context, media and political outlets vie for the attention of third parties (the spectators in the stadium, but also the general public). It is this attention that lends the medal count-as the symbolic emblem of the national competition for intangible goods-its legitimacy and prestige. Nevertheless, empirical evidence is still scarce on the question of how much importance large sections of the German population attach to medal counts. Using data from a non-representative sample (N=604) of the German population to estimate multivariate logistic regression models, we shed light on factors that determine how much importance a person attaches to medal counts. Our results suggest that they tend to be important for athletes, people interested in sports, people with a strong sense of patriotism, people with authoritarian attitudes, and people who use self-help books and similar media to reach decisions. In contrast, the socioeconomic factors age, sex, migration background, and education do not play a significant role in the interest in medal counts.

Hans Surén's Deutsche Gymnastik (German Gymnastics) and publications of individual chapters from the book sold more than 750,000 copies during the Weimar Republic and the Third Reich. Surén was more than just a freelance writer and advocate for the naturist movement. He also initiated a conceptual reform of physical education in the Reichswehr and, later, in the NS labor service as well. Furthermore, he influenced various kinds of civic clubs, especially during the Weimar Republic. Surén is, due to his commitment to the NS regime as well as the re-editing of his Sonnenbuch, a controversial figure. This study deals with the question of where Surén derived his ideas, which, as previously mentioned, found broad resonance throughout German society. In addition, it outlines the key points of Surén's program: He urged a life in close touch with nature, spoke out against the military ‘drill’ as part of physical training, and rejected the striving for athletic achievement. To this day, some German sports historians consider Surén's publications to be essentially trivial. This article attempts to present a more nuanced picture.