(Download) "Squaw Valley, 1960: Volunteers, Technology and a Bucket of Water" by Wanda Ellen Wakefield ~ eBook PDF Kindle ePub Free
eBook details
- Title: Squaw Valley, 1960: Volunteers, Technology and a Bucket of Water
- Author : Wanda Ellen Wakefield
- Release Date : January 01, 2010
- Genre: Sports & Outdoors,Books,
- Pages : * pages
- Size : 82 KB
Description
Since their inception, the modern Olympic Games have depended upon volunteers to do the hard work. Volunteers officiate at the Games. Volunteers usher the crowds. Volunteers sell the tickets. Volunteers compile start lists and hand out race bibs. Volunteers take care of peoples' medical needs. Volunteers organize national and international federations. Indeed, without volunteers the entire "Olympism" project would collapse under its own weight. Of course, not all volunteers are alike, in background, interests, or goals. Some show up only during an Olympic Games. Some officiate not only at an Olympic Games but also at the many small meets and contests required to ready an athlete for competition at an Olympic event. Some volunteers work in various capacities, over many decades, because they want to participate in, and because they are able financially to do, long-term Olympic work. In 1960 all three types of these Olympic volunteers made significant contributions to the staging of the Winter Games at Squaw Valley. That year, in addition to those volunteers working on "the field of play," many anonymous men and women worked back at "the office" on the paperwork attendant upon any competition, often waiting until "game time" decisions were made in order to finish their job. Meanwhile, at speed skating, volunteer officials struggled to make new timing technology and new ice machines work in the way in which they were intended. And the long-time enthusiastic supporter of the Olympic movement, the Baron Eduard von Falz-Fein continued to promote the small country of Liechtenstein and its sports program, by bringing a team of skiers to California over the protests of Liechtenstein's Crown Prince Francis Joseph. Through both their efforts and the efforts of many other volunteers who worked pre-Games competitions all over the globe, the 1960 Olympic Winter Games at Squaw Valley ultimately succeeded, despite the controversy over the International Olympic Committee's decision to give the Games to a resort, which, at the time of the award announcement, was completely unprepared and undeveloped for the task. Baron Eduard von Falz-Fein was one of those volunteers whose wealth and connections afforded him ample time to devote to the Olympic movement. Baron von Falz-Fein began his involvement with Olympism as a relatively young man whose interest in sports and athletics would last throughout his long life. Born on 14 September 1912, the son of Russian aristocrats, he was raised in Nice, France, his family having fled the Russian Revolution of 1917. By 1935 he had moved to Liechtenstein where he became involved in the organization of the first Olympic Committee for that small alpine country. The following year (1936) he took advantage of his own athleticism, by piloting a two-man bobsled at Garmisch-Partenkirchen, and finished 18th among the 22 sleds entered in that year's Olympic competition. Later in 1936, Falz-Fein turned up in Berlin to cover that year's notorious Summer Games as a correspondent for the French sporting newspaper that would eventually evolve into L'Equipe. (1) Then, as with all Olympic enthusiasts, Falz-Fein had to wait--for over a decade and the conclusion of the Second World War--before another staging of the Games became possible.
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