Article

Abstract

Historians have written a great deal about the 1936 Berlin Olympics and its many controversies, especially the boycott movement. Little attention has been paid to what happened to those counter-Olympic efforts in the aftermath of the boycott movement. This article discusses two counter-Olympic festivals in the United States in the summer of 1936. The Workers’ Olympiad in Cleveland, Ohio, a modest affair organized by a local Czech gymnastics society over the Fourth of July weekend, was a noteworthy event within the Czech American community but faced too much competition from other higher-profile athletic events to make a significant national impact. The World Labor Athletic Carnival, organized by Jewish labor leaders in New York City, attracted a number of Olympic-caliber athletes but struggled to mount a legitimate challenge to the Berlin Games. The shortcomings of these counter-Olympic efforts suggest some of the failings of workers’ sport in the United States more generally.