Popular sports cannot just be measured and weighed - Festival Journalism or 'How to Report Diversity'

This article is part of a research project about the Danish Landsstævne, the National Sport Festival Bornholm 2002.

Contents

Festivity: Sport journalism has a problem
1. Journalism of record the result and the hero
2. Reporting other records numberism
3. Journalism of the spectacular the event inside the event
4. Problem journalism whats wrong
5. Journalism of the joyful faces jubilation and welfare
6. Human touch journalism the situational
7. Show journalism the gaze
8. Cultural journalism irony, dream, challenge
9. Political journalism the conflict
Camera and democracy

Festivity: Sport journalism has a problem

Folkelig idræt kan ikke sådan måles og vejes

Popular sports cannot just be measured and weighed.

This was the deep sigh of a journalist who followed the Landsstævne, the Danish national sport festival in Bornholm (Jyllands-Posten 28.6., 29.6.02).

If or when sport is festivity, this implies some special challenges for a journalism, which is trained to report what is measured and weighed. But how is the relation between festivity and sport?

In pre-modern times, games and dances were an integral part of popular festivity. This connection between sport and festivity was loosened by the rise of modern sport since the nineteenth century. Sport became now a disciplinary structure of training and production of results, of records. In this process of sportization, the festivity of play and game was fundamentally devalued and displaced by the productivity of sports and the training of rules (Eichberg 1994). Whilst there does not exist any specific festival journalism, a whole professional world has arisen around sport journalism.

Also for modern sport, however, festivity has kept an underground importance. Disciplinary achievement sport uses festivity as a sort of supplement to normal sport activity, as a means of earning money for the club. Workers sport tried to build up a proletarian festivity culture of its own type (which did not succeed in the longer run). Olympism has arranged achievement sport after the model of world expositions and called this event a festivity, supplying it with religious undertones. And gymnastics have developed festivity as a feature of their alternative identity, developing a mixture of theatrical display, do-it-yourself activities and popular-national mass meeting where it is the process that matters, not the results. This was the origin of the Danish festival of gymnastics in the nineteenth century, starting in 1862 as a riflemens meeting.

The festivity in sport is, however, not only a remains from pre-modern popular culture or an underground feature of modern sports. Under the circumstances of late modernity since the end of the twentieth century, an event culture has become more and more important for the cultural panorama. Media strategies and interests of sale, technologies of visualisation, political interests and popular fascination joined in the great show of entertainment. A post-modern festival culture has come into life (Skot-Hansen 1998, 151 ff; Waade 2002).

Sport journalism is challenged it has a post-modern problem. How do media react to festivity and how could they? What is the good story of popular sport festival?

Let us have a look at the case of the Landsstvne, the Danish sports festival 2002 on Bornholm, organized by Danish Gymnastics and Sports Associations (DGI).

1. Journalism of record the result

Brasilien for femte gang: For femte gang vandt sydamerikanerne VM-titlen. Det har ingen gjort Tyskland blev sænket 2-0

Brazil for the fifth time: For fifth time the South Americans won the World Cup. Nobody did this before Germany went down 2-0

(TV2 Sporten, 30.6.02)

The mainstream of sports journalism has its focus on results and stars. This type of record journalism reduces the festivity to the production of results. This is objectified by the numbers of the records and by the prominent faces. One knows what sport is about excellence. Excellence is measured in centimetres, grams, seconds and points and represented by heroes. The ideal form of this journalism of record is the ranking table of results, consisting of names and figures. This may be compared to the figures of stock-exchange quotations on the financial pages of the newspapers. If we want so see numbers, we have a look at the financial news and sports news, not at the cultural pages of your newspaper. (For a more detailed survey see Schultz Jørgensen 2002.)

But in a sport festival, which does not aim at producing top performances, the journalist misses his object. And with this, the traditional role of the expert is devaluated, the man talking in the studio about technical, tactical and strategic details of record production.

Is there anything other that might be interesting in sports? No, said once a chief functionary of Danish elite sport: Hvem gider se bønder slå kolbøtter? Who does really want to see farmers jumping somersault? These words of Niels-Christian Holmstrøm from Team Danmark were polemically directed against the popular sports in Denmark.

However, the Danish newspapers and TV-stations have reported from the Landsstævne 2002 quite a lot. But what did they tell and how? It is not so easy to find the pattern in this journalism, because it is fumbling between different types of materials and oscillating between different discourses. If one tries to classify the reports after certain topics (Hjelmgaard 2002, Hylbk 2002), this may result in a strange mix of general comments, highlights, interviews, weather reports, transport problems, single sport disciplines, social life and festivity, police and injury reports etc. The particular topics, which are reported, are related to certain styles of journalistic writing. There reveals a though complex connection between the topic and a certain type of attention, a certain configuration of the journalistic form and politics. Seen under the aspect of this relation, some typical genres can be discerned, each with its own complex configuration of focus and style.

2. Reporting other records numberism

Stor lussing til landsstævne: Svigtende deltagelse til DGIs landsstævne på Bornholm giver million-underskud

A great slap in the face: Falling participation at DGIs festival in Bornholm gives deficit of millions

(Ekstra Bladet 14.5.02)

Mere end bestået: Det gigantiske efterskolehold med 2287 deltagere fik mere end bestået i skoleårets sidste eksamen

More than passed: The gigantic team of 2287 boarding school pupils more than passed the last examination of this school year

(Jyllands-Posten 30.6.02)

If the event is not centred about results, the mediated interest of the public can be directed towards the other records, for instance records of participation. At the Landsstvne 1990 in Horsens there were 22,523 (active) participants registered, 1994 in Svendborg already 41,570, 1998 in Silkeborg 45,027 this is a story of growth. It repeats the well-known objectification of numbers. In Bornholm, however, and for different reasons, the registered participation went down to 19,769 (including families and guests). This gave headlines in the press, comparing the participation with the 40 000 which were expected. This box on the ears was also discussed as a question of money.

But there are other fields of numberism.

One is the number of TV-switches. 680,000 seers followed the transmission of the opening ceremony of the Landsstævne in TV (TV2), which was parallel to the transmission of the Soccer World Cup (DR 1). Later in the evening, 728,000 saw the gymnastics of the National Danish Performance Team (DGI press information 29.6.02). This was quite remarkable in relation to the 1.5 million Danes, which saw the final of the Soccer World Cup.

The festival organisation DGI played the media game of numberism, too. Its counter strategy to the down-going numbers consisted in calling to attention the huge team of efterskoleelever, the pupils of Danish boarding schools. With 2287 participants, this was the largest team ever on the grass of a landsstvne another type of record. If there was no growth of participant number in general, there was growth nevertheless.

And, of course, the media attention itself can be made an object of statistics how many articles and millimetres of columns in print media, how many seconds in TV and TV switches, which value of advertisement. (Hjelmgaard 2002, compare also the remarkable figures for the German Turnfest in: Medienspiegel 2002).

3. Journalism of the spectacular the event inside the event

Verdensholdet: Sidste aften med kliken

World team: Last evening with the comrades

(Jyllands-Posten 28.6.02)

Vand, vand og atter vand

Water, water and water again

(Bornholms Tidende 1.7.02)

More generally, journalism can turn attention to the spectacular, the extraordinary event inside the event. This may be surprising events, hooliganism and violence, royal participation etc. The festival in Bornholm, however, did not give occasion to any violence. Media paid a certain attention to police reports, but nothing remarkable did happen. And there was no royal participation, which in other cases had furnished the landsstvne with special colour and public attention.

DGI played the game of the spectacular by arranging midnight croquet with self-illuminating bowls as a worlds first night. But this event did not become any success in the media.

More successful was Verdensholdet, the Danish National Team of Gymnastics. It had a remarkable resonance in TV and in the headlines of the papers.

But there can also be unexpected and unwanted events. Rainy weather and storm became a characteristic of the festival in Bornholm. Tents were blown away, people fled to school sport halls, single arrangements had to be cancelled all in all no catastrophe, but nevertheless

4. Problem journalism whats wrong

Monumenter til Mikkelsens minde: I bedste Samaranch-stil skræper DGI-formanden Leif Mikkelsen profilen i sit sidste regeringsår

Monuments for the memory of Mikkelsen: In the best style of Samaranch DGI president Leif Mikkelsen sharpens the profile in his last year of power

(Jyllands-Posten 11.2.01)

The spectacular can be negative, and this is the field of problem journalism: The sensational is scandalous. Bad news is good news - this is what drives investigative journalism, which is treating corruption, doping and the criminal links inside international Olympism and FIFA (Andrew Jennings, Lars Werge, Thomas Kister, Jens Weinreich). Problem journalism is also one of the main perspectives of Sports Intelligence Unit, making the conference Play-the-game interesting for the media.

In the case of the Landsstvne, investigative problem journalism had not much stuff to find. No violence, only few cases of alcohol over-consumption and sports injuries, no sexual harassment, neither doping nor corruption.

The conservative daily Jyllands-Posten had earlier tried to reveal some political pressure, which DGI exerted on the municipalities concerning local investment into the Landsstvne stadium. The paper compared the DGI leader with the notorious leader of Olympic corruption. But this question did not mark in a more serious way the media picture of the festival.

5. Journalism of the joyful faces jubilation and welfare

Livsglæde til Landsstævne: Byger, blæst og fest for fællesskabet

Pleasure of life at the festival; Rain showers, storm and festivity for the community

(Ungdom & idræt 11.7.02)

The positive side of the spectacular is presented by the journalism of the joyful faces. People are happy in festivity, this is expressed by sun shine stories. People look glad into the camera saying: Der er gang i (there is happening something) Det var så sjovt (this was so wonderful).

But these positive stereotypes and their flourishing repetition have their problem. One may be in doubt whether the reader wants to get to know them. As a journalist asked some years ago: Do you really believe that people want to see all these houses wives being happy?

Anyway, this type of joyful journalism has developed in two main versions:

The journalism of jubilation is typically developed by festival organisations cheering on themselves. The DGI magazine Ungdom og idrt issued a special issue showing the joyful sides of the Landsstævne. And journalists of the local paper Bornholms Tidende produced a festival paper Landsstævne-Avisen. Both DGI and Bornholms Tidende published books of colourful photographs, continuing a longer tradition of joyful-memory picture books (H. Larsen 2002). The same pattern can be found in the richly coloured volumes of Deutsches Turnfest, edited by Deutscher

Turner-Bund (Steinert/Ockert 2002). And we know it from the jubilation literature of Olympism as well.

A parallel tendency can be seen in pedagogical welfare journalism, which follows the guiding line to show what is good for the people. The good story is here the engagement of the volunteers, the happy faces of civil society. This is also a feature of DGIs (and ISCAs) politics, but it has broad appeal in welfare society.

6. Human touch journalism the situational

Veteraner: Hverdagens idrætslige helte

Veterans: The heroes of every-day sport

(Jyllands-Posten 28.6.02)

Ø fodbold: Ned at kure for Gurre Frosne kyllinger, kolde pilsner og regn i stænger kan ikke fjerne humøret fra fodboldturneringen i Nex under DGIs landsstvne på Bornholm

Island soccer: Gurre club Frozen chickens, cold beer and rain cannot take away the good mood from the soccer competition in Nex during DGIs festival in Bornholm

(Jyllands-Posten 29.6.02)

Oh, disse minder

Oh these memories

(Aktuelt 29.6.98)

Whether joyful or critical in attitude, journalism has a chance to come close to the human beings who are involved in the festival. We see individual faces, and the unknown Danish has the word. The journalist talks to the normal participant, about personal experience and biographical background. The reader learns something about the particular, about nuances and mellemtoner, intermediate tones and shades. This is a genre of at komme hinanden ved to concern each other. The report is built up around the deep concern of the human face.

Also strange minor events at the margin of the festival may enter into the journalistic report, surprising situations with face. The anecdotic method can do what other genres the journalism of records, of investigation, of political contradictions cannot. The small journalism of close perspective is typical for local newspapers and regional TV.

The situational journalism includes a possibility of ironical distance. This is what the generally conservative and Olympic-minded Jyllands-Posten used to demonstrate its political distance towards popular sports.

7. Show journalism the gaze

Stævnemøde: 40.000 forført af drømmestemning ved åbningen af gymnasternes landsstævne

Rendevouz: 40,000 seduced by dreamlike atmosphere at the opening of the gymnasts festival

(Ekstra Bladet 28.6.02)

Åbning i rødt og hvidt: DGIs landsstævne fik en traditionel og vellykket åbning på et fyldt landsstævnestadion i Rønne

Opening in red and white: DGI's festival got a traditional and successful opening in the filled-up stadium of Rønne

(Jyllands-Posten 28.6.02)

Det var bare så flot. Vi måtte alle overgive os. Landsstævnets festaften afvæbnede os. Vi løb tør for superlativer

This was just so wonderful. We all had to give up. The festival evening disarmed us. We had no superlatives left

(Bornholms Tidende 29.6.02)

When turning from the small story to the great story, we meet the show. The great, glittering show catches attention. This can be reinforced when well-known pop artists are used for the highlights of the festival. Prominent faces from the world of media entertainment smile into the public and into the cameras. The Landsstvne used several pop and rock groups, but else refrained from the well-known face of pop culture in the official ceremonies. The German Turnfest has gone one step further during the last years, arranging the central gala show of its festival in co-production with television companies (Steinert/Ockert 2002, 26-31). This is in some way not so far from the tendencies of record sport towards entertainment and circus show.

This genre has also a certain bias of sensuality towards the visual. As Bornholms Tidende expressed it: We are lacking words, therefore look at the pictures. Visual qualities of the festival reveal especially in bird-eye perspective. Colourful photographs and films are the adequate means of communication. Television is the guiding media.

But this visual bias includes some problems. One problem may be that the pictures of the colourful masses (and the pop stars on the scene) can give associations with Fascist mass arrangements and with the Spartakiads of Soviet times (and the beloved leaders on the scene). The one-sided spectator perspective makes overlook, that the popular festival gets its real dynamics from self-made activities. All participants are in some way active, and this tends to disappear under the gaze of the show.

And there is also on the level of sensuality more than the gaze, more than the visual there is what people can hear. In Danish language, stemning (atmosphere) is etymologically connected with stemme (the voice). Gymnastics movements are accompanied by pop, rock and funk and in some respect, gymnastics are bodily music themselves. Mass clapping and cheering is an important feature of the landsstvne, the joint singing is central in Danish popular culture, and rock music is pounding from the tents and from the large scene of the festival. In Bornholm, the band Shubidua was placed centrally with its ironical anarcho-nationalist pop, meeting enthusiasm across the generations. And more than this, popular festivity consists of situations of collective ecstasy, of what is experienced as fever or the flesh beginning to creep. (Indeed, headlines in German media reporting about Deutsches Turnfest used words like: Turnfest-Fieber, Turnfest-Taumel, Gnsehaut see Medienspiegel 2002). Though this atmospheric dimension can be put into metaphorical words, the stemning withdraws from the visualization strategies of show journalism.

8. Cultural journalism irony, dream, challenge

På klippegrund: Et rørende landsstævne. Ingen bortset fra håndboldspillerne i Kirkeby kan deltage i en landsstævne uden at blive rørt. Også Jyllands-Postens udsendte har nu oplevet det folkelige møde på egen krop

On solid ground: A moving festival. Nobody except the handball players in Kirkeby (who had to drop their competition because of the storm) could have participated in the festival without being moved. Also the journalist of Jyllands-Posten has now experienced the popular meeting on his own body 

(Jyllands-Posten 30.6.02)

The cultural dimension of peoples sport is that it integrates the sport event into the life of the people in a broader way. But after which premises can the spirit or atmosphere of the festival and its concrete connection with practical life or its non-connection, its alternative dream time outside everyday life be reported? Under this aspect, journalism moves in the whole spectrum between cultural challenge and media-industrial entertainment.

One way is ironical journalism. An example is Jyllands-Postens comment about the rrende, the moving dimension of landsstævne popular festival is an event where you may get tears in the eyes, you may fall in love and you meet strange situations with dogs and sheep.

Cultural journalism has the chance of openness, putting questions, casting light on the poetic dimensions of human togetherness. The broader qualities of sport festivals can be explored in very different ways, this may be characterized by some different faces of Danish cultural personalities:

The way of Anders Lund Madsen (who was present in Bornholm, as he was in Sydney during the Olympics): The journalist goes around, close to the event, and puts silly questions staging and simulating stupidity and even making a virtue out of stupidity. This has its background in the particular character of Danish humour though not all Danish appreciate this type of entertainment.

The way of Jørn Leth: The author describes play and game as well as events like the Tour de France and other events of Olympic type in a serious, philosophical and lyric style. Poetry reveals romantic sides of sport. Though sometimes criticized for its tendency towards an affirmative and non-political fan perspective, it catches by poetic means the existential sides of the event.

The way of Stine Gotfredsen: The observer approaches her topic more analytically and critically, opening the perspective towards the cultural horizon of the phenomenon. The event is enriched by surprising comparisons with other cultural creations and other social practices. There is life outside the sports pages of the newspapers, and this life is just what gives profile to what is happening on the sports field.

The way of Torben Ulrich: The observer enters the event in a surprising manner, as a person in confrontation. The observer himself is a happening neither a critic nor a fan, but a personal and cultural challenge. By observing the observer Torben Ulrich in an event, you suddenly see the event in a new and unexpected perspective. Or should the Landsstævne, maybe, be too traditional for this intervention?

These and other types of cultural journalism are rarely applied to Landstævne. Seen from the self-understanding of popular sports in Denmark sport as culture cultural journalism should be a main genre, shouldnt it?

9. Political journalism the conflict

Olympisk folkelighed: Landsstævnerne skal bestå, men det bør være slut med dette ressourcespild

Olympic populism: The festival shall continue, but this waste of money should be stopped

(Jyllands-Posten 12.2.01)

Tid til tømmermænd: Næppe en eneste af de 15.519 tilmeldte deltagere rejser hjem med en dårlig helhedsopfattelse, selv om en stiv kuling og voldsomme regnbyger gjorde sit til at ødelægge moralen rundt omkring i teltlejrene. DGI bør benytte den bornholmske øretæve til selvransagelse og til et opgør med den tomme del af retorikken og den uhensigtsmssige del af traditionerne.

Time for the hangover: Hardly one single participant of the 15,519 registered returns home with a bad experience of the whole, though storm and rain did all to destroy the good mood in the tent camps. DGI should use the slap in the face to self-criticism and to a critical look at empty rhetoric and inappropriate traditions

(Jyllands-Posten 1.7.2002)

Last but not least, festival journalism is political journalism, which is in quest of relevant conflicts. During the nineteenth century the festivity of peoples sport had national-democratic and oppositional undertones, thus it was a potential field of political attention. Different forms of gymnastics Swedish versus German gymnastics stood for different political orientations. In the 1930s, the landsstvne in Ollerup came into the radiation field of international Fascism. After 1945, different forms of gymnastics were in conflict again and different orientations towards nationalism and democracy as well. After 1968 there was revolt in the younger generation, though this was rarely manifested on the field of popular sport festivals. Anyway, people in movement mean people in conflict.

Where is the place of Landsstvne and other popular festival today? What is it relation to popular movement? Which role does ideology play in the festival event? What is the societal place of the soft feminine nationalism, which a sharp-eyed journalist observed in a landsstvne some years ago? Where is the conflict?

If the peoples festival was directly anti-Olympic, the situation of the journalist would be clearer, and there would be an either/or. However, the case of the landsstvne is not as easy.

Indeed, the conservative Jyllands-Posten, which has covered the Bornholm festival most politically, has during the last years tried to construct such clear fronts, by commenting the notion of popular sport in a disapproving way and pointing to the paradoxical Olympic populism of popular festivity. The sport pages of Jyllands-Posten are known for aggressive attacks against representatives of popular sport, against critics of Olympic sport, and against serious sport research in general, while the system of elite sport, its closed lodge system and the personal interests of its functionaries are defended. This Olympic-minded conservatism corresponding to the general line of the paper refuses to recognise diversity in popular movement culture. The critical reports of Jyllands-Posten about the Landsstvne of Bornholm could therefore be read in the context of this declared sportive and political cultural struggle.

However, the reports of Jyllands-Posten about the Bornholm festival were so detailed and many-facetted that they also could be read as a revision or nuancing of the traditional confrontation. They pointed towards some relevant inner tensions of popular sports in Denmark.

The tensions between popular self-organisation from beneath and organisation from above in the name of the popular are, indeed, a central conflict inside the landsstævne and the popular festival more generally. The relation between the dynamic of popular movement and the crystallized choreographies of the masses is always up to discussion.

Further tensions could be remarked between the different forms of popular sports activities. Gymnastics have traditionally dominated the picture of the landsstævne, and they did so in the Bornholm festival not only in the media picture while other activities of sports tended to be marginalized.

A further field of tension is made up by the ecology of the festival. DGI has in earlier cases tried to implement a green agenda at the landsstvne, by healthy meal, recycling materials, planting trees, promoting environmental consciousness and combining this ecological approach with a strengthening of outdoor activities. In Bornholm, some interesting efforts were made to integrate landscape planning near the stadium into the landsstvne, but else the green agenda was invisible.

Surely, political journalism is more than just an expression of the journalists own opinion as the correct opinion. And yet, the explicit positionality of the journalist is legitimate, and more than this, it is an important element of festival journalism.

The political perspective means attention to clash. The political is the conflict. Popular movements and popular festivities need political critique. And festivity is not only harmless.

Le sommeil du volcan, cest la fte folklorique. Ne vous y fiez pas. Son reveil, cest la barrage de routes et la dfenestration du sous-prfet. Chaque chose son temps. The silence of the vulcano, this is the folk festival. Dont feel too sure. When it awakes, the roads will be barred and the police-headquarter will be without windows. Each has its own time. This is how the Breton writer and folk researcher Pierre Jakez Hlias (1975, 580) expressed the explosive potentials of popular festival. This was said in the 1970s. But in the process of the falling of the wall 1989, the popular festivities of Eastern Europe and Central Asia also played a certain role.

Camera and democracy

The way through the journalistic genres shows a rich though unbalanced spectrum. The patterns are often mixed and overlapping. And we find styles of attention and writing, which are also applied in the case of the Olympic event.

None of the described approaches of festival journalism is illegitimate. But they confront the journalistic observer with a question of choice and decision. Because the genres of journalism are full of contradictions and oppositions, and each style is limited in its own way.

Apropos choice: The personal decision of the journalist is the more demanded, as traditional sport journalism of record actually is in crisis. Since the late 1980s, the consumer of sports media has been showing a down-going interest in the traditional forms of sports coverage while active participation in popular sports is rising (Schultz Jrgensen 2002, K. Larsen 2002 and 2003).

And apropos contradiction: The question may arise, whether there could be some main contradiction that makes up the centre of gravitation of a popular sport festival. Let us listen to some observers from outside.

A handful of American students from Ohio State University were present at the Landsstævne in Silkeborg 1998 to make anthropological studies. Some of their observations were quoted by the daily paper Aktuelt (29.6.98):

This here is quite different from what we know Here all are together irrespective age and ability. This is impressing. One can see that sport is based on participation instead of results.

Here is place to the style and form of the individual. And you do not take it so grave if the outer appearance is not perfect. We have seen people tumble on the mat during a jump, but they just shrugged their shoulders and continued instead of standing and grieving.

On one gymnastic team there was a woman gliding. The participant just before her turned around and made sure whether she was okay it did not matter that some steps went wrong. Even the best just smile at their mistakes.

There are certain aspects that may remember of Fascism the idea of a healthy people and the educational dimension in sports. If you see the presentation, you may sometimes be reminded of military where all march in same step All these flags give also an impression of nationalism.
The best athletes make the more difficult exercises inside the group so that the whole is connected. We have seen a presentation where six persons came in bearing a platform with one single person on it but he could only stand there because the others bore him. The group is the strong fundament.

The individual, the mass, the group how to grasp these qualities of the popular festival and their inner contradictions? How to grasp what is different, what is particular in the diversity of human bodily practice, what makes up the richness of sport as popular culture?

On one hand, we see the politics of the camera: The people crystallize in geometrical choreographies of the masses, as if seen from above.

This repeats the gaze of Fascism, which is more than a question of flags, ideology and national rhetoric. The problem of Fascism is a problem of seeing, of gaze. Democracy and self-determination from below have no real chances as soon as the angle of the bird-eye view determines.

Self-organisation from below cannot be grasped by the camera of entertainment.

On the other hand there is cultural-democratic journalism as a new challenge. Festivity, identity and civil society are connected. The festival is a manifestation in space and time that the human being is not alone in the world. People meet in diversity and togetherness. Recognition of otherness opens towards the richness of sport, outside standardization and streamlining sport from below and from inside. Festival journalism is a historical-poetical genre and a political job or an impossible job?

Anyway, it is here that we meet relevant inner contradictions of popular festivity, popular sports and DGI. And it is here that we meet the inner contradictions of festival journalism, which is more than sports journalism.

The contribution of journalism to bodily practical democracy demands a sensitive balance between objectivity and subjectivity. The objective dimension of the event tends to be over-stressed by the records in the Olympic type of sports and by the gaze of the camera. The subjectivity of the observer is an important part in the game and in the festival but not the only and determining element. The inter-subjectivity of what is happening at the cross-roads of cultural, political and emotional encounter is the third, the dialogical dimension.

That is why the festival of popular sports cannot just be measured and weighed. It is a cultural event, and: Culture is struggle. A struggle for giving each moment of life more beauty, more meaning (Girard 1973).


Litterature

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• Politiken
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Eichberg, Henning 1994: Festen og idrtten. Vejle: DGI.

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Hlias, Pierre Jakez 1975: Le cheval dorgueil. Mmoires dun Breton du pays bigouden. Paris: Plon, new ed. 1987.

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(Hylbk, Gerdt 2002:) Samling af presseudklip om Landsstvnen. Vejle: DGI.

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Larsen, Knud 2002: Effects of professionalisation and commercialisation of elite sport on sport for all and sports consumtion in Denmark. In: Proceedings of the 9th IOC Sport for All Conference. Arnhem, Nederland, October 2002. Also in: www.ifo-forsk.dk

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Skot-Hansen, Dorte 1998: Holstebro i verden verden i Holstebro. Kulturpolitik og -debat fra tresserne til i dag. rhus: Klim.

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