Olympian Dreams

This chapter reframes the Olympic Games as a space of contestation rather than a fixed place of peace. Initially this objective sounds ludicrous given that this mega-event was deliberately designed as a pathway to transcend conflict and instigate peace. In ancient times the proclamation of a sacred truce during the four Panhellenic Games called on all warring parties to halt their battles before, during and after the competition to ensure the total safety of athletes and spectators (Georgiadis and Syrigos 2009). While no truce is formally declared in modern epochs, the expectation that peace will prevail during the games is inscribed in the Olympic Charter (IOC 1894[2014]) and is avowedly championed by the International Olympic Committee (IOC) and Olympic Movement. Such sentiments were echoed by the UN general secretary, Ban Ki-Moon, during the preparations for the Sochi 2014 Winter Olympics. As he noted, the Olympic Truce is rooted in the hope that if people and nations can put aside their differences for one day, they can build on that to establish more lasting ceasefires and find paths towards durable peace, prosperity and human rights. For these next few weeks, may the torch of the Olympic and Paralympic Games in Sochi remind us what is possible when nations unite. (Ban 2014)

A notable trend regarding the mega-events is that there are an increased number of events hosted in Oriental countries. At the same time, the aspect of Olympic legacy has become a fundamental force and hot topic for every single host city. The purpose of this study is to challenge the original Olympic legacy concept defined by the International Olympic Committee (IOC), which was premised on the Occident value. The IOC considers Olympic legacy to be insufficient. By comparing the Olympic legacy between Orient and Occident, this study discovered that the Orient Olympic legacy is a result of the Occident’s assimilation. In addition, the study found that the hosting city did not usually consider what the Olympic legacy could bring to a Third World. As such, there is a need for further studies to develop the Olympic legacy of acculturation and understand how the Olympic legacy can best be planned, sustained and extended.

The Summer Olympics bring hundreds of thousands of visitors and generate upward of $10 billion in spending for the host city. This large influx of tourism dollars is only part of the overall impact of hosting the Olympic Games. In order to host the visitors and sporting events, cities must make sizable investments in infrastructure such as airports, arenas, and highways. Additionally, the publicity and international exposure of a host city may benefit international trade and capital flows. Proponents argue that this investment will pay off through increased economic growth, but research confirming these claims is lacking. This paper examines whether hosting an Olympiad improves a city's long‐term growth. In order to control for the self‐selection of cities that host Olympic Games, this paper matches Olympic host cities with cities that were finalists for the Olympic Games, but were not selected by the International Olympic Committee. A difference‐in‐difference estimator examines post‐Olympic impacts for host cities between 1950 and 2005. Regression results provide no long‐term impacts of hosting an Olympics on two measures of population, real Gross Domestic Product per capita and trade openness. (JEL O18, R11)

In the early 1990s, the International Olympic Committee (IOC) became involved in diplomatic efforts surrounding the dissolution of Yugoslavia and war in Bosnia-Herzegovina. Forced into action by United Nations Security Council Resolution 757, which placed sporting sanctions on Yugoslavia, the IOC responded with the Olympic Truce initiative and public appeals for peace in the region. These endeavours culminated in President Juan Antonio Samaranch’s trip to Sarajevo during the 1994 Olympic Winter Games in Lillehammer, Norway to promote a ceasefire for the duration of the games. This campaign was arguably the most direct and ambitious attempt at international diplomacy ever undertaken by the International Olympic Committee. IOC archival and contemporary press sources demonstrate the rationale, logistics, and ultimate outcome of Samaranch’s trip, and show that the IOC’s peace initiatives were part of a broader effort to increase the prestige of the organization amid growing public criticism and preserve its autonomy in the face of the United Nations’ use of sporting sanctions.

At sporting mega‐events, there is increasingly intense competition off the field of play as well as on it, with big brands battling it out for the attention of consumers. Some of these brands are associated with official event sponsors; others are associated with commercial rivals that have no official association with events such as the Olympic Games or the Fédération Internationale de Football Association (FIFA) World Cup. The latter group is increasingly engaging in what is termed “ambush marketing”‐for instance, by seeking to deliberately persuade or mislead consumers into thinking they have an official association with a sporting mega‐event. The emergence of ambush marketing emanates from the centrally controlled sale of a small number of rights packages by bodies such as the International Olympic Committee (IOC) and FIFA, which effectively exclude non‐rights holders from associating with an event. Brands that have no official legal right of association often therefore seek to access similar benefits to official sponsors by engaging in a range of activities, including targeted promotions and the creation of rival tournament properties. The focus of this article is fourfold: (1) to explain how ambushing has emerged, (2) to define ambush marketing, (3) to identify various types of ambushing, and (4) to discuss some of the management issues and challenges posed by ambush marketing. © 2011 Wiley Periodicals, Inc.

Hosting mega sport events will build of the events venues and infrastructure, and the operation of the events involve huge environmental resources, activities, and construction projects that might negatively affect cities’ natural environment. Since Olympic Games would damage to the natural environment of host city. In order to protect the natural environment and mitigate the disturbance at host city, International Olympic Committee (IOC) introduced environment into the Olympic Games as the third pillar associated with sport and culture since 1996. The environment has become an important factor for hosting Olympic Games. Both host and non-host residents felt that environmental legacies were the most important aspect, as it was highly relevant to their quality of life. Mega sports events also potentially impact on local ecosystems. But the environmental impacts of sport events are difficult to assess quantitatively. This study introduces environmental concept into sports event to resolve the problem of estimation and help to offer benefit/cost analysis information sufficiently. The aim of this research is to discuss the evolution of sports event and environment. This research is also to construct a feasibility analysis method on the evaluation of sports event based on environment estimation methods.

In 2015, with the publication of the UN Agenda, sport has been recognized as instrumental for sustainable development. The Agenda consists of guidelines for the future and is in line with the recommendations of the 2020 Olympic Agenda: in fact, the International Olympic Committee (IOC) believes that sports and the Olympics can help develop the majority of the Agenda goals.The next Olympics will be held in Paris in 2024 and will be the first organized according to the sustainability principles set up by the Agenda. This case is supposed to mark a turning point in the history of the Olympics. However, these objectives remain fairly vague in that they are not defined by concrete criteria.Here we develop a method that starting from the analysis of the Agenda goals provides a series of requirements to discretise and evaluate quantitatively the long-term sustainability of the event. This study investigates, with particular focus on the urban and architectural aspects, the relations between the event and the host city, between people and context and between event and environment. Much importance is given to public infrastructures, the wellbeing of visitors and athletes and the needs of the host city. We study the Olympic venues, assessing how many of them already exist, are temporary, or have been built for the event, as well as which materials were used in the realization [fig.1]. We pay attention to the legacy of the event, which implies planning from the beginning the future of the city after the Games. In fact, the Olympics in Paris are part of a wider process of expansion of the city: the construction of a large infrastructure network, the Grand Paris Express, and the redevelopment of the suburban district of Seine Saint-Denis [fig.2].With this method, we can easily analyse results of studies and field research, like visits to the building site, and evaluate the impact of the event. This study is the beginning of a process that allows us to analyse and compare different Olympic editions within a single coherent framework.

Contemporary environmental challenges significantly impact the Olympic legacy, necessitating adaptations and sustainable policies. Climate change, manifested through rising global temperatures, reduced natural snowfall, and increased frequency of extreme weather events, affects both the organization of competitions and the viability of traditional host locations. The development of infrastructure required for the Games contributes to habitat degradation, deforestation, and biodiversity loss. Air and water pollution, exacerbated by Olympic activities, along with massive waste generation, pose additional challenges, particularly in host cities with underdeveloped waste management systems. Intensive consumption of natural resources, such as water and construction materials, further worsens issues in ecologically vulnerable regions. Social and ecological inequalities also arise, including the displacement of local communities and the uneven distribution of environmental and economic costs. To mitigate these effects, it is essential to integrate sustainability principles through the use of existing infrastructure, adoption of strict environmental standards, and implementation of carbon footprint reduction policies. Promoting ecological education and innovative solutions can transform the Olympic Games into a model of best practices for sustainable global events. The modern visions promoted by National Olympic Committees (NOCs) reflect a growing commitment to organizing environmentally friendly Olympic Games, integrated into global sustainability strategies. These initiatives prioritize reducing the ecological impact of sporting events, aligning with international objectives for environmental protection and climate change mitigation. Measures adopted include the use of existing infrastructure or temporary facilities to minimize habitat degradation and resource consumption. Sustainable planning involves transitioning to renewable energy sources for powering venues, reducing carbon emissions through green transportation, and efficiently managing waste through recycling and reuse. Additionally, NOCs promote environmental education among athletes, officials, and the public, emphasizing the Games' role as a platform for global awareness. Circular economy principles are incorporated into organizational processes, while collaborations with private and public sector partners support the implementation of innovative, eco-friendly technologies. These modern visions, reflected in initiatives such as the International Olympic Committee's Agenda 2020+5, reinforce the commitment to transforming the Olympic Games into a model of environmental leadership, contributing to a sustainable legacy for the long term. Ensuring global ecological standards within the Olympic Movement requires the adoption and promotion of strategic and multidimensional actions with a long-term impact on global sustainability. Key identified measures: ✓ Development of sustainable infrastructure Designing and utilizing facilities that adhere to ecological principles, such as reducing energy consumption, using recyclable materials, and constructing venues with minimal impact on ecosystems. ✓ Reducing the carbon footprint Introducing eco-friendly transportation for delegations and spectators, utilizing renewable energy across all Olympic facilities, and offsetting emissions through ecological restoration projects and reforestation initiatives. ✓ Efficient waste management Implementing advanced waste collection and recycling systems, reducing single-use materials, and promoting the circular economy at every stage of event organization. ✓ Environmental education and awareness Conducting awareness campaigns for athletes, spectators, and host communities on the environmental impact of actions, while integrating sustainability as a core value of the Olympic Movement. ✓ Adopting international environmental standards Aligning Olympic strategies with the United Nations Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) and international climate agreements, such as the Paris Agreement. ✓ Continuous monitoring and evaluation Establishing a transparent system for reporting environmental performance and implementing audit mechanisms to ensure compliance with established standards. Through these actions, the Olympic Movement can position itself as a global leader in promoting sustainability, reinforcing its role as a model of ecological best practices, and actively contributing to environmental protection. Olympic education serves as a strategic tool for promoting ecological sustainability within the Olympic Games, aiming to encourage behavioral and cultural changes necessary for environmental protection. This educational dimension, embedded in the values of Olympism, facilitates awareness of human activities' impact on ecosystems and promotes the adoption of sustainable practices in the long term. Educational initiatives include programs targeted at athletes, organizers, spectators, and host communities, focusing on topics such as reducing carbon footprints, conserving natural resources, and managing waste. Awareness campaigns surrounding the Olympic Games leverage digital platforms, workshops, seminars, and partnerships with educational institutions to amplify ecological messages. A central aspect is integrating concepts of circular economy and environmental responsibility into sporting and organizational activities, emphasizing sustainability across all stages, from planning to implementation. Additionally, Olympic educational programs aim to create a lasting legacy by fostering generations aware of their role in protecting the environment. Through initiatives such as Agenda 2020+5, Olympic education becomes a cornerstone of transforming the Olympic Games into a model for sustainable events, contributing to global environmental goals and reinforcing the role of Olympism as a promoter of sustainable development. Contemporary environmental challenges represent a significant threat to the Olympic legacy, influencing both the organization of the Olympic Games and their impact on the environment, economy, and the global community. Climate change, pollution, habitat degradation, and the intense consumption of resources put pressure on host regions, and addressing these issues requires an integrated and sustainable approach. However, by implementing rigorous ecological policies, utilizing innovative technologies, and adopting a sustainable organizational model, the Olympic movement can become a leader in promoting environmental responsibility. Initiatives such as using existing infrastructure, reducing carbon emissions, and environmental education are essential for transforming the Olympic Games into a global example of best practices. In conclusion, to ensure a positive Olympic legacy in the long term, organizers must address these environmental challenges with a strong commitment to sustainability. This approach can contribute not only to protecting the environment but also to strengthening the role of the Olympic Games as a global platform for positive ecological change.

The Olympic Games is recognised worldwide as the largest sports mega‐event – certainly, the event attracting the largest amount of media coverage globally. As well as a sports event, the Olympics are a cultural phenomenon, with a history spanning more than 100 years and supported by a global network of organisations with an educational and intercultural remit that defines itself as a Movement and aspires to promote Olympism as a ‘philosophy of life’, headed by the International Olympic Committee. What is less known is that the Games also incorporate 100 years of Olympic cultural and arts programming and that such experience is playing a growing role defining or contributing to respective host cities’ cultural policies. This paper offers an overview of the cultural dimension of the Olympic Games and the development of Games‐specific cultural programming. After an introductory section providing a discussion and framework to the notion of cultural policy‐making within the Olympic Games, the paper presents an historical account of ‘official’ Olympic cultural programming, in the summer editions of the Games, from the initial conception by Pierre de Coubertin in 1906 up to the last implementations on occasion of the Sydney 2000, Athens 2004 and Beijing 2008 Games. The paper ends with a brief revision of the current challenges and prospects that the programme, now denominated by the Cultural Olympiad and spanning over four years, holds within the Olympic Movement and for future host cities such as London in the lead to 2012.

Since the early days of the modern Olympics, luminaries within the International Olympic Committee have actively discouraged mixing sports with political protest. However, throughout the history of the games, activism has often bubbled to the surface. This has taken two predominant forms: (1) athlete activism and (2) political movements that springboard off the games to express their dissent, taking advantage of the media spotlight that flashes over the host city during the Olympics. Historical interplay exists between political movements and athlete-activist moments: protest groups create discursive space into which athletes can strategically move. This article is a panoramic historical survey featuring episodes of both athlete-activism and movement protest, from Irish athlete Peter O’Connor at the 1906 games to Tommie Smith, John Carlos, and Peter Norman at the 1968 Olympics, from South African activists who leveraged the Olympic Charter to fight Apartheid in the 1960s and 1970s to activists who took to the streets during the Rio 2016 summer games. Along the way, I delimit the central grievances that movements have raised vis-à-vis the Olympics both historically and in the twenty-first century – from high costs and social displacement to the militarization of the public sphere and broken legacy promises.

A minority of athletes continues to use prohibited drugs in sports to enhance performance. Athletes discovered using these drugs can be subject to severe penalties, often resulting in media and public scrutiny, especially at major events such as the Olympic Games. The International Olympic Committee (IOC) has set out the classes of the substances it bans in the IOC Medical Code. In many cases "old" drugs such as anabolic steroids are still used, and current testing regimes can test for these. Advances in the therapeutic treatment of illness have resulted in new drugs or practices, many of which are difficult to detect and which have been turned to the sinister role of performance enhancement. Detection of some newly developed drugs which have been placed on the banned list offers a major challenge to laboratories involved in sports dope testing. In some cases this requires research into new applications of research techniques. These techniques involve the novel use of gas chromatography/ mass spectrometry (GC/MS) techniques, high-resolution mass spectrometry (HRMS), carbon isotope ratio mass spectrometry, and immunoassay techniques.

This dissertation aims to examine the implementation of the World Cup 2014 in Brazil, taking into consideration not only its legacy and most obvious impacts, but mostly understanding it as a substantive part of the wider dynamics of the capitalist way of production in its relationship with the host cities, the places. As some of the biggest events on the planet, the World Cups are presented as individual and transitory vehicles of the aggregation process of capitalism, while being simultaneous matrices of time and space during this historical period marked by global economic crisis. In this movement, having spaces as the places of their full realization, these mega events leave deep marks; they promote the qualification of a certain fraction of the time in which they occur, determined by the needs of capital to play profitably, something complex during this critical moment. The totality, this "web of events" tangled between the concrete needs and possibilities of places, gains new designs in cities from contact with the agenda set by the mega event. Since 2007, when Brazil was chosen to host this event and the economic crisis had already appeared on the North American and European horizon, Brazilian cities are living the reality of a critical agenda guided by the International Football Federation (FIFA). In the background of the rigid strategies of the sponsors and corporations interested in the event, a true state of emergency is promoted to meet norms and "FIFA standards". Taken by an avalanche of construction sites and real state negotiations unrelated to strategic plans that take into account the needs of the population, the host cities become experiments in new forms of privatization and dispossession, under the regime of emergency laws and rights violations. Such dynamics -imposed on the World Cup cities as a whole -is clearly manifested in the drafting of a new central location in the metropolitan area of Recife through the construction of large real estate project called "Cidade da Copa", around the stadium built for the event. This is the outbreak in Brazil of a fundamentally urban crisis, where on the one hand "cities of exception" are structured, and in another vertex a creative power of resistance is also promoted. As demonstrated in the multitudinous urban protests of June 2013 and the uninterrupted protests that followed them, the requital that took places in host cities can also structure "rebellious cities" as legacies.

Introduction: The ratio of male to female live birth is defined as male births divided by total births (M/T) and is expected to approximate 0.515. This study was carried out in order to ascertain whether M/T in Malta was in any way influenced by the World Cup. Methods: Index months were months in which the World Cup was held (always in June), from 1958 to 2010 (n=14). Live births were analysed for January before the event to nine months after (the following March). Results: This study analysed 297254 live births. The decline from June to February was highly significant (p=0.001). A dip in M/T was noted in the February after the World Cup and this significantly lower when compared to the previous January to January period (p=0.001). M/T in these Februaries was also significantly lower than that in the other Februaries in the rest of the period studied (p=0.0023). Discussion: The majority of fans side with Italian or English national teams for old colonial political reasons. Stress leading up to and following the World Cup may have reduced M/T in Malta, with a rapid recovery when the effect passed.

As a result of a recommendation from the IOC Olympic Games Study Commission, in November 2002 the IOC Olympic Charter was amended to emphasise the importance of ‘promoting a positive legacy from the Olympic Games to the host city and host country’ (IOC, 2002). The bidding process for the 2012 Olympic and Paralympic Games, which concluded in July 2005, was the first Summer Games bidding process conducted under this amended charter. Consequently, although previous host cities had included a consideration of legacy as part of an internal justification for public sector investment, London, together with Paris, Moscow, Madrid and New York, were the first candidate cities for the Summer Games explicitly invited to address the issue of legacy as part of their bids for the 2012 Games. It was an invitation to which London enthusiastically responded. The notion that there might be rationales and outcomes beyond the simple organisation of a sport competition for hosting the Olympic and Paralympic Games is not new. In the last 20 years, hosts have articulated various rationales for wishing to stage the Games. For example: the 1992 Games in Barcelona were used as a mechanism to accelerate the delivery of an extensive programme of urban regeneration; a key aim for the Sydney Games of 2000 was to position Australia as a centre for business in emerging Asian markets; and the Beijing Games of 2008 were used to help China interact with the global economy, promoting the country as a welcoming place in which to live and visit, and with which to do business (Xu, 2006). But these were largely rationales that were used by the hosts to justify the public sector investment in the Games. For London, though, the notion of ‘legacy’, or the imprint left by the Games before, during and after the event, was articulated from the outset as the raison d’etre of the bid. No previous host had been so ambitious or explicit about using the Olympic and Paralympic Games as a catalyst for economic and social good, not only in the host city but across the country as a whole (Weed, 2010). London’s candidacy for the 2012 Games sought to differentiate itself from both previous editions of the Games, and from its bid competitors, by explicitly and extensively referencing the legacy that a London Games would seek for the host city and the host country, but also for the Olympic Movement and for the youth of the world. For the IOC, with its firmly held belief that sport and the Olympic values and ideals can be a global force for good, this was a powerful and attractive message.

Soccer is a worldwide sport. Every 4 years since 1930, the sport stimulates a growing number of people, countries, and money during the Soccer World Cup. This scientific treatment of matches using complex networks and social networks focuses on the teams participating in the tournaments, as well as on the interaction between players. The present work aims to broaden the scope of studies focusing on referees’ networks. For this purpose, we built referees’ networks of all World Cup competitions to date. We used indices based on the clique approach for the analyses and characterization of the networks, and the detection of clusters was investigated by identifying communities and islands. Some important results emerge from this study, such as the finding that the networks do not follow a pattern throughout their editions with respect to the indices and the structure. There is, however, a change in procedures from the 2006 World Cup with respect to referee choice. This change leads to the emergence of a pattern in the last four World Cups.