Sport as Symbol

Abstract

This paper is an attempt to analyse sport in semiological categories, i.e. of sign and symbol. The author accepts the significative layer of sport is nearest to the nature of a myth. Contemporary sport expresses the industrial society's desire to compete, to reach for perfection, individual fame and riches. It also satisfies the hope for rapid horizontal and vertical mobility, for women to surmount biological and culture barriers and for the abolition of ethnical and racial inequality. It further expresses the longing for universal ethical principles and for escape from the spiritless conditions of a profane world.

In the author's view, the basic forms of symbolizing sporting behaviors have been expressed by: the ideology of sport, utopia of sport, ethics of sport, sporting art, science of sports and a ritual of a sacral nature.