Winner of the 2022 Lord Aberdare Literary Prize from the British Society of Sports History
During the Cold War, political tensions associated with the division of Germany came to influence the world of competitive sport. In the 1950s, West Germany and its NATO allies refused to recognize the communist East German state and barred its national teams from sporting competitions. The construction of the Berlin Wall in 1961 further exacerbated these pressures, with East German teams denied travel to several world championships. These tensions would only intensify in the run-up to the 1968 Olympics.

In Bidding for the 1968 Olympic Games, Heather L. Dichter considers how NATO and its member states used sport as a diplomatic arena during the height of the Cold War, and how international sport responded to political interference. Drawing on archival materials from NATO, foreign ministries, domestic and international sport functionaries, and newspapers, Dichter examines controversies surrounding the 1968 Summer and Winter Olympic Games, particularly the bidding process between countries to host the events. As she demonstrates, during the Cold War sport and politics became so intertwined that they had the power to fundamentally transform each other.

HEATHER L. DICHTER is associate professor of sport management and sport history at De Montfort University.

"Dichter offers a fresh perspective on a still under-researched area of NATO history. The book is clear and well-written. The chronological structure allows non-specialist readers to follow the intricacies of the various negotiations and to understand how each small decision pushed the alliance and its members toward closer cooperation in support of the free movement of athletes."—Linda Risso, American Historical Review

"Dichter provides a thorough, in-depth analysis of the situation, drawing heavily on primary source materials in a relatively short but fascinating read."—CHOICE

"A testament to the power of deep archival research, Bidding for the 1968 Olympic Games reveals that the diplomacy of international sport and the diplomacy of the Cold War were flipsides of the same coin."—Timothy Andrews Sayle, author of Enduring Alliance: A History of NATO and the Postwar Global Order

"Bidding for the 1968 Olympic Games will appeal to a wide range of sports historians, as well as scholars and students interested in the cultural history of the Cold War, especially during that always fascinating decade, the 1960s.”—Alan McDougall, author of The People's Game: Football, State and Society in East Germany

"[F]ew historians will be able to match Dichter’s abilities as a linguist and practitioner of international history. Crafted from archives in eight countries with deftly combined storylines, Bidding for the 1968 Olympic Games sets a high bar for scholars of sports diplomacy."—Joseph Eaton, Journal of Sport History