BOOK REVIEWS

• Gregor Starc: Lincoln ALLISON. 2005. The Global Politics of Sport: The role of global institutions in sport. London & New York: Routledge.
• Gregor Starc: David. L. ANDREWS , Daniel S. MASON and Michael SILK 2005. Qualitative Methods in Sport Studies. Oxford and New York: Berg.
• Nataša Rogelja: Tatjana BAJUK SENČAR. 2005. Kultura turizma: Antropološki pogled na razvoj Bohinja. Ljubljana: Založba ZRC.
• Borut Telban: Michael JACKSON. 2005. Existential Anthropology: Events, Exigencies and Effects. New York and Oxford: Berghahn.
• Vinh-Kim Nguyen: Helle JOHANNESSEN and Imre LÁZÁR (eds.). 2006. Multiple Medical Realities: Patients andHealers in Biomedical, Alternative and Traditional Medicine. Oxford: Berghahn.
• Trevor Stack: JoAnn MARTIN. 2005. Tepoztlán and the Transformation of the Mexican State: The Politics of Loose Connections. Tucson: University of Arizona.
• Daniela Rachel Vavrova: Sarah PINK. 2006. The Future of Visual Anthropology: Engaging the senses.London: Routledge.
• Saša Čaval: Ivan ŠPRAJC. 2006. Quetzalcóatlova zvezda: Planet Venera v Mezoameriki. Ljubljana: Založba ZRC.

Abstracts

Gregor Starc
Skiing memories in the Slovenian national mnemonic scheme: An anthropological perspective
The socio-political transformations of Slovenia in the 1980s and 1990s were not founded on the verifiable facts but mostly on the popular cultural myths, beliefs and practices that have been established by a new regime of truth about the Slovenian nation. The old hegemonic discourse of Yugoslav brotherhood and unity started to loose its persuasiveness and people started to raise new borders between the Yugoslav nations by referring to the newly invented old traditions and the freshly discovered forgotten memories, and by selective forgetting of events that could challenge the new order of truth. Slovenian skiers and their sporting results played especially visible role in this remembering process. Because of its omnipresence in people's everyday life skiing became an integral part of this new national mnemonic scheme and served as a material proof of Slovenian national distinctiveness. This paper focuses on a genealogy of collective memory of skiing in Slovenia until 1991 that was legitimised by science, politics and the media; they jointly transformed skiers and skiing into sites of national memory that were disseminated as a part of everyday popular entertainment.
Keywords: sport, skiing, collective memory, Slovenia

Philip Moore
Luck in the vocabulary of motives of professional ice hockey
This paper examines an important aspect of professional ice hockey. While the game has become increasingly commodified and rationalized, and so organized on scientific and economic grounds, the notion of luck still finds a place in interpretations of action and outcomes in the sport. As one feature of the vocabulary of motives present in hockey, the use of luck makes sense when understood as a concrete manifestation of the underlying moral understandings of what is understandable and sensible about hockey. The fact that empirical uses of luck can be contested indicates the presence of underlying moral logics of the game that are not systematized and compelling but rather permeable, historical and open to different formulations. The use of luck in hockey, even though sporadic and contingent, up the rationality of the game and makes it possible to inhabit a moral world where the best does not always win and the worst does not always lose.
Keywords: sport, luck, motives, contestation, professional, hockey

Paul Gilchrist
The politics of totemic sporting heroes and the conquest of Everest
This article prepares the conceptual ground for understanding the sporting hero. It focuses upon the totemic logic of the sporting hero; the social, cultural and political conditions that bring the hero into being. This position is elaborated through a review of an interdisciplinary literature and a discussion of the British sporting hero. In particular, the essay focuses upon ideas and legacies of the heroic that have emerged through attempts to conquer Everest, as a heightened symbolic site for the continued generation of British imperial aspirations and heroic masculinities. It culminates with an examination of Sherpa Tenzing Norgay, who in 1953 ascended Everest, but whose case is illustrative of the powerful associations suggested by the totemic approach. However, Norgay's example is also used as a reminder of the assumed relationships and associations between the hero and society. It cautions that we balance continuities and complexities in future studies of the sporting hero, and that we remain sensitive to the constructedness of the sporting hero, experienced through history and by collectives and  individuals.
Keywords: sporting hero, masculinity, British imperialism, Everest, mountaineering

Brian Joseph Gilley
Cyclist subjectivity: Corporeal management and the inscription of suffering
The body of the European road cyclist, gaunt faced and emaciated but with enormous muscled legs, is an indelible image. This image has been venerated and parodied by film, literature and used in nationalist propaganda. The heroic persona of the cyclist who shapes their body to maximize strength-to-weight ratios further reinforces discourses of body management. Yet, the men who exhibit the superhuman strength to endure the requisite suffering are also docile bodies continually put through disciplinary regiments by their team directors, sponsors, the cycling industry and themselves. It is this contradiction between the veneration of individual suffering and cyclist as a form of subjectivity where we can investigate the ways in which the cycling industry naturalizes techniques of domination.
Keywords: cycling, subjectivity, the body, suffering, discipline

Noel Dyck
Athletic scholarships and the politics of child rearing in Canada
Organized competitive community sports for children and youth have become popular activities in contemporary Canadian society and are eagerly supported by many parents who view these as socially appropriate pastimes for sons and daughters. Children's achievement of athletic success tends to be viewed by many parents as a sign of their relative preparedness to confront and manage the future social and economic challenges of adulthood. Athletic success at different levels is also taken to demonstrate the adequacy of parents' attempts to attend appropriately to the responsibilities of child rearing. This essay examines the particular attractions provided by the possibility of athletically accomplished children eventually winning paid athletic scholarships to attend colleges and universities in the United States. The paper asks why so many middle-class parents who are able to afford the cost of underwriting post-secondary education for sons and daughters nonetheless commit so much of their own time and resources, not to mention those of their children, to the pursuit of athletic scholarships in the USA.
Keywords: community sports, childrearing, athletic scholarship, Canada

Gregor Jurak
Sporting lifestyle vs. 'cigarettes & coffee' lifestyle of Slovenian high school students
Two different lifestyles of Slovenian high school students, which can be differentiated by their sporting activity, were studied on a sample of 681 high school students of both genders with an average age of 18 years. Some indicators of young people's lifestyle related to eating, drinking, smoking, daily routines, socialising and sporting activity were used to demonstrate their habits. Some other factors-gender, urbanisation of the environment and the education of parents-which could also influence the lifestyles of young people were also studied. The findings confirm the hypothesis that participation in sport has a significant impact on the formation of two quite opposing lifestyles in terms of unhealthy habits. The sporting lifestyle is, besides regular sporting activity (at least three times 45 minutes per week in addition to PE lessons), also characterised by regular eating habits and the infrequent intake of intoxicating substances. Although the consumption of these substances is largely related to partying, the results showed that students with a sporting lifestyle socialise and spend their weekend nights similarly to their peers, but in a less unhealthy way. In contrast, the so-called 'cigarettes&coffee' lifestyle is an antithesis to the sporting lifestyle when health risk factors are considered.
Keywords: lifestyle, health, habits, high school, sport

Marjeta Kovač
When social becomes biological: The effect of different physical education curricula on motor and physical development of high-school girls
Article presents the differences between certain morphological and motor variables of the high-school girls according to the type of educational programme they attend: general (gymnasium), technical/professional or vocational. Research included 17.424 girls, out of them 8.910 attended general programmes, 6.226 technical or professional courses and 2.288 were included in vocational programmes. Data were collected within the framework of the Sport-educational chart data collection. Variance analysis and t-test were used to calculate the differences in the types of programmes for 11 variables, whereas discriminatory analysis was used to find variables, which most significantly differentiate the groups of 16-, 17- and 18- year old girls. Differences between individual groups are statistically significant in all of the morphological and motor variables. Girls in general programmes have better morphological structure than other two groups, which are discriminated only slightly in morphological structure. Presumably these differences are a result of different socio-economic environments that determine the quality of nutrition. Girls in general programmes also achieved best results in test of all the motor variables, followed by the girls in technical programmes and the girls in vocational schools. All the differences are probably a result of factors, which influence the completion of motor programmes, as well smaller quantity of physical education lessons in the vocational  programmes.
Keywords: high school, educational programmes, girls, physical characteristics, motor abilities

Janko Strel
Correlation of physical characteristics and general endurance: A comparison of 7- to 19-year-old pupils between 1983, 1993 and 2003
The study examined the correlation between selected physical characteristics of pupils (body height, body weight, upper arm skin fold) and a general endurance indicator for 1983, 1993 and 2003. It was predicted that changes in physical and motor development observable in the last twenty years have altered also the magnitude and direction in correlation between certain physical characteristics and the results of a 600-metre run. Multiple correlation coefficients between the 600-metre run and certain morphological characteristics for 1983, 1993 and 2003 proved to be relatively high with pupils of all thirteen age groups. As expected, the highest values can be noticed in the period of adolescence with morphological characteristics influencing the 600-metre run result by up to 25%. The average multiple correlation coefficient between the 600-metre run and all three morphological characteristics was for all age groups of pupils the lowest in 1983 but it grew in every following decade.
Keywords: morphological characteristics, general endurance, correlation, boys