Abstract: Norbert Elias's research on the sociology of sport began at the University of Leicester. He placed the sociological problem of “sports” in the civilization process research, and proposed “sportization” to simulate the historical process of modern social competitions. Following Elias's investigation of athletic competition and its social structure in ancient Greece, this article points out that ancient athletics and modern sports are not of the same origin, and takes violence-related factors (state mechanism and formation process, social control of violence monopoly, internalization of violence and conscience) as a clue to outline a civilized chain which links “Ancient Greek Olympiad-Medieval Tournament and Folk Sports-Modern Sports”. At the same time, from the perspective of anthropology, this article takes violence and warrior spirit as the starting point to further clarify Elias's argument on the distinction between athletic competition and sports in ancient Greece, which point to the Greek warriors and the Germanic warriors (the medieval knights) respectively. The Christianization reform established a universal inner-peace, and completely stripped of the possibility of violence as a life style, as a result, sport has become a way for the third class (the mass producers) to “create” and maintain the morality and passion of the warrior spirit in modern times.

Key words: Nobert Elias, sport, warrior spirit, the civilization process