Description
The growth of gymnastics coincided with the Cold War, where opposing states competed to expand their sphere of influence. My research question is: with the rising global popularity of women’s gymnastics, how did the sport shape diplomatic relations between the United States and Soviet Union during the 1970s? I argue that American interest and the humanizing of Soviet gymnasts, despite ideological differences, improved relations between the two states. During my Keck Fellowship, I applied past literature on soft power and sport culture to examine the contrasting American media reception of Soviet gymnasts, Ludmilla Tourischeva and Olga Korbut. While previous scholarship focuses on the development of gymnastics, this paper incorporates government memoranda and newspaper articles, in the hope of offering new insights on gymnastics in American diplomacy.
The Korbut: Flipping Cold War Narratives in the 1970s
The growth of gymnastics coincided with the Cold War, where opposing states competed to expand their sphere of influence. My research question is: with the rising global popularity of women’s gymnastics, how did the sport shape diplomatic relations between the United States and Soviet Union during the 1970s? I argue that American interest and the humanizing of Soviet gymnasts, despite ideological differences, improved relations between the two states. During my Keck Fellowship, I applied past literature on soft power and sport culture to examine the contrasting American media reception of Soviet gymnasts, Ludmilla Tourischeva and Olga Korbut. While previous scholarship focuses on the development of gymnastics, this paper incorporates government memoranda and newspaper articles, in the hope of offering new insights on gymnastics in American diplomacy.
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Faculty Mentor: Kathryn Statler