This book explores the transformation of the Olympics over the past decades and explains how the Olympic movement played its part in world politics, the world economy and international relations. The chapters published as a special issue in the International Journal of the History of Sport.

Introduction 1. Independent Olympic Athletes and the Legitimacy of the International Olympic Committee in Resolving International Conflicts 2. The Legacy of the Games of the New Emerging Forces and Indonesia's Relationship with the International Olympic Committee 3. 'The Sole Anti-Democratic Federation in the Entire Olympic Movement': Early International Association of Athletics Federations Development Initiatives Between Commercialization and Democratization, 1974-1987 4. Sport in Singapore (1945-1948): From Rehabilitation to Olympic Status 5. Olympics, Media and Politics: The First Olympic Ideas in Brazilian Society During the Late Nineteenth and Early Twentieth Centuries 6. The Development of Social Media and its Impact on the Intercultural Exchange of the Olympic Movement, 2004-2012 7. A Game for the Global North: The 2018 Winter Olympic Games in Pyeongchang and South Korean Cultural Politics 8. The Development of the Olympic Narrative in Chinese Elite Sport Discourse from Its First Successful Olympic Bid to the Post-Beijing Games Era 9. Xi Jin-Ping's World Cup Dreams: From a Major Sports Country to a World Sports Power

Lu Zhouxiang is a Lecturer in Chinese Studies at the National University of Ireland Maynooth. His main research interests are Chinese history, nationalism and China's sport policy and practice.

Fan Hong is a Professor in Asian Studies at Bangor University, Wales. Her main research interests are in the areas of sociology, politics, cross-cultural studies, sports studies and Asian studies.