USSR 1927-1937 How did Athletics connect with Politics?

Question

Research project due Thursday...Need to write on the Athletics that were going on around this time and how they connect with the political environment...Any good websites you know of...really could use some help

Answer 1

Soviet premiers were chosen during that period using contests of skill and strength.  Trotsky defeated Lenin in a 1924 golf tournament, only to be bested by Stalin in an ice-climbing competition two months later.  This practice continued until 1953, with Stalin killing or severely injuring most of his country's athletes, politicians and generals in deadly games of air hockey.  

Stalin was finally eliminated in a lightning round of rock-paper-scissors when Khrushchev insisted that shoe crushes everything.

Answer 2

The Soviet Union extended the cold war onto the Olympics.  There athletes, mostly derived from the Red Army, were trained to treat their 'amateur' opponents as adversaries.  The point was to upset the game and win at any costs humiliating that particular nation.

All the Soviet athletes were hand picked severely trained professionals indoctrinated with communist superiority theology.  They usually did something unorthodox then argued their way to victory.  The Soviet athletes never intended to perpeuate good sportsmanship or spread good feelings.