Olympic Legacy

This comprehensive collection provides an overview of social scientific perspectives on Olympic legacy, using specialist analyses and selected cases to illuminate the recurring anthropological, political, and sociological dimensions of the legacy debate. Drawing upon research conducted on the Beijing, Vancouver, Athens, London and Rio de Janeiro Olympic Games, it identifies the recurrent rhetoric that has characterised the legacy debate, alongside the harsh realities that contradict many legacies and aspirations. Fifteen researchers from six countries contribute a range of critical analytical studies which explore macro-perspectives on the shifting political economy symbolized at Beijing or in an over-reaching Greece, the soft power benefits perceived by the Rio 2016 organizers, the anthropological study of neighbourhood spaces threatened by corporate branding, and the apparatus of surveillance surrounding an Olympic Games. The symbolic importance of the Games is also captured in studies of volunteer motivations, labour and work initiatives, and the introduction of women’s boxing at London 2012. In a comprehensive overview, Alan Tomlinson illuminates the rhetoric of successive Olympic cycles and the rise to prominence of the legacy question in that debate. This book was originally published as a special issue of Contemporary Social Science.

How do Olympic legacies come about? This book offers an alternative approach to the study of Olympic and mega-sport event legacy, challenging how legacy is conceptualised and practised. It shifts the focus from legacy as a retrospective concept concerned with what has been left behind after the Games, to a prospective one interested in actions and interactions stimulated by the Games. The book argues that creating Olympic legacy is a continuing four-stage process involving ‘investing’ (the accumulated common Olympic cultural capital), ‘interpelling’ (forming a trusteeship relationship where one party undertakes to change the capacity of another), ‘developing’ (ensuring participation in interactions and resource development) and ‘codifying’ (documenting, sharing and remembering legacies so they become cultural capital). It presents a developmental approach to the Olympics which involves vision, trustees and trusteeship and is concerned with capacity building at individual, organisational and societal levels. Thinking of Olympic legacy as capacity building allows seeing the goal of legacy as an embodiment of the aspirations of the Olympic Movement and the Games to introduce radical change in society by transforming its structure. Rethinking Olympic Legacy is essential reading for all students and scholars within an interest in the Olympics, as well as for administrators, policymakers and planners involved with mega-sport events.

Drawing upon historical, cultural, economic and socio-demographic perspectives, this book examines the role of London's hosting the 2012 Olympic and Paralympic Games as a means to promote urban regeneration and social renewal in East London and the Thames

This book provides a unique perspective on the behind the scenes planning of London's Olympic legacy. The author had unprecedented access to the legacy organisations, institutions, and individuals involved with the 2012 Games. This has allowed her, in a highly accessible and engaging style, to capture a sense of the unfolding drama as attempts were made in London to harness the juggernaut of Olympic development, and its commercial imperative, to the broader cause of meaningful post-industrial regeneration in East London. The book argues that London will become the test-case city against which the legacies of all future Olympic Games, and other sporting mega-events, will be judged. The author provides the first in-depth case study of a mega-event legacy planning operation, and sets out a constructive conclusion, which details the lessons to be learnt from London's experience. Exploring the relationship between mega event planning, and post-industrial urban regeneration, this book will appeal to scholars across Sociology, Sport and Olympic studies, Anthropology, Urban Studies and Geography as well as policymakers and practitioners in urban and sport planning.

For more than a century, the Olympics have been the modern world's most significant sporting event. Indeed, they deserve much credit for globalizing sport beyond the boundaries of the Anglo-American universe, where it originated, into broader global realms. By the 1930s, the Olympics had become a global mega-event that occupied the attention of the media, the interest of the public and the energies of nation-states. Since then, projected by television, funded by global capital and fattened by the desires of nations to garner international prestige, the Olympics have grown to gargantuan dimensions. In the course of its epic history, the Olympics have left numerous legacies, from unforgettable feats to monumental stadiums, from shining triumphs to searing tragedies, from the dazzling debuts on the world's stage of new cities and nations to notorious campaigns of national propaganda. The Olympics represent an essential component of modern global history. The Olympic movement itself has, since the 1990s, recognized and sought to shape its numerous legacies with mixed success as this book makes clear. It offers ground-breaking analyses of the power of Olympic legacies, positive and negative, and surveys the subject from Athens in 1896 to Beijing in 2008, and indeed beyond. This book was published as a special issue of the International Journal of the History of Sport.

This book examines claims that the Olympic Games are a vehicle to inspire and increase mass sport participation. It focuses on the mass sport participation legacy of the most recent hosts of the summer Olympics, including Atlanta, Sydney, Athens, Beijing, London, Rio, and Tokyo. It is organised by host city/country and applies an analytical framework to each, addressing the socio-political context that shapes sport policy, the key changes in sport policy, the structure and governance of community sport, the Olympic and Paralympic legacy, and the changes in mass sport participation before, during, and after the Games. The book is important reading for students, researchers, and policymakers working in sport governance, sport development or management, and the sport policy sector.

When a city wins the right to hold the Olympics, one of the oft cited advantages to the region is the catalytic effect upon the urban and transport projects of the host cities. However, with unparalleled access to documents and records, Eva Kassens-Noor questions and challenges this fundamental assertion of host cities who claim to have used the Olympic Games as a way to move forward their urban agendas In fact, transport dreams to stage the "perfect games" of the International Olympic Committee and the governments of the host cities have lead to urban realities that significantly differ from the development path the city had set out to accomplish before winning the Olympic bid. Ultimately it is precisely the IOC’s influence – and the city’s foresight and sophistication (or lack thereof) in coping with it – that determines whether years after the Games there are legacies benefitting the former hosts. The text is supported by revealing interviews from lead host city planners and key documents, which highlight striking discrepancies between media broadcasts and the internal communications between the IOC and host city governments. It focuses on the inside story of the urban and transport change process undergone by four cities (Barcelona, Atlanta, Sydney, and Athens) that staged the Olympics and forecasts London and Rio de Janeiro’s urban trajectories. The final chapter advises cities on how to leverage the Olympic opportunity to advance their long-run urban strategic plans and interests while fulfilling the International Olympic Committee’s fundamental requirements. This is a uniquely positioned look at why Olympic cities have – or do not have – the transport and urban legacies they had wished for. The book will be of interest to planners, government agencies and those involved in organizing future Games.

Sustainable management is an important consideration for businesses and organisations, and the enormous number of tourism events taking place requiring facilities, power, transport, people and much more makes sustainable event planning a considerable priority. By looking at mega events, sports events, conferences and festivals, this book uses best practice case studies to illustrate sustainable management issues and practical considerations that managers need to apply, providing an essential reference for researchers and students in leisure and tourism.