Nudity in sport: Encyclopedia II - Nudity in sport - In Current Times

Nudity in sport - In Current Times

Sport in the modern sense of the word became popular only in the 19th century. Nudity in this context was most common in Germany and the Nordic countries, where Body culture was very much revered (and some say, copied) by Nazi ideologues.

In the nordic countries, with their sauna culture, nude swimming in rivers or lakes was a very popular tradition. In the summer, there would be wooden bathhouses, often of considerable size accommodating numerous swimmers, built partly over the water; hoardings prevented the bathers from being seen from outside. Originally the bathhouses were for men only; today there are usually separate sections for men and women.

For the Olympic Games in Stockholm in 1912, the official poster was created by a distinguished artist. It depicted several naked male athletes (their genitals obscured) and was for that reason considered too daring for distribution in certain countries. Posters for the 1920 Olympics in Antwerp, the 1924 Olympics in Paris, and the 1952 Olympics in Helsinki also featured nude male figures, evoking the classical origins of the games. The poster for the 1948 London Olympics featured a classical nude sculpture of a discus thrower.

A group from the southern U.S., having been invited in the 1950s to participate in a university students' swimming competition in Stockholm, was surprised to find at their arrival at the (indoor) swimming pool that their swimming trunks were out of place; they had to swim stark naked like their Swedish colleagues.

It is not uncommon for private clubs with male-only or female-only facilities to allow (for example) nude swimming. Some argue that in more private environments (whether at home or in, say a single-gender bathhouse), the less clothing one has on when exercising or doing any activity the better.

During the yearly Roskilde Festival (Denmark), a race for nude runners has been a popular event since the year 2002.

• Stephen Gough, dubbed the Naked Rambler, in 2003/2004 made a long-distance walk from one end of the UK to the other, wearing only boots. He was arrested several times, and his walk was interrupted by two periods of jail time, together five months. Including these, the journey took seven months. He undertook his walk as a protest, in order to celebrate the naked human form, and to try to convince the public to stop being paranoid about the naked body. He observed that anti-nudity laws are more strictly enforced in Scotland than in England. As of July 2005, he is attempting the walk again, accompanied by two naked companions.

On 12 June 2004 over 1,000 people taking part in the World Naked Bike Ride in 24 mostly North American cities rode their bicycle either partially or totally nude in a light-hearted attempt to draw attention to the danger of depending on fossil fuels. In 2005 many European capitals saw bare bikers protesting 'poetically' against the badly protected 'exposure' of the cyclist compared to 'armoured' motor vehicles.

Adapted from the Wikipedia article "In Current Times", under the G.N U Free Docmentation License. Please also see http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki