Professor Robert K. Barney, affectionately known as Bob, began researching the Olympic Games in the 1980s, when the subject area was largely in its infancy. In 1989, Bob established the International Center for Olympic Studies at his home institution, the University of Western Ontario, and three years later created Olympika, the first peer reviewed academic journal focused solely on the Olympic Movement. Through these two mediums and a biannual conference, Bob was able to stimulate and disseminate new research on the Games, all of which significantly aided the international growth of Olympic Studies in universities around the world. Beyond this, Bob’s own historical research is revered. He has produced seminal works on American and Canadian Olympic history, and has written several books on Olympic commercialism. His groundbreaking monograph Selling the Five Rings, coauthored with Stephen Wenn and Scott Martyn, won the 2003 North American Society for Sports History book award. In recognition of his achievements, Bob has received many other honors, including the International Olympic Committee’s Olympic Order (1998), the North American Society for Sport History’s Recognition Award for “Exceptional Contributions to the Study of Sport History” (2003), and the International Society of Olympic Historians’ Pierre de Coubertin Award for “lifetime achievements in advancing Olympic scholarship” (2009).