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This study explores 'inspiration' in the context of the Olympic Games, focusing on the Beijing 2008 and London 2012 Olympics years after the event hosting. Utilizing a retroductive strategy, the study identifies key sources of inspiration, constructs a causal model based on existing literature, and validates it through qualitative and quantitative data. Although contextual differences exist between the two cities, similar findings emerged: inspirational feelings have indeed persisted years after the hosting of the Games, largely attributed to the 'elite role model' effects and 'the overall experience of the Games'. While the effects of such feelings on sports participation vary, in Beijing at least, the hosting of the Games had a significant correlation with participation in sport/physical activity in the years that followed. While hosting such events might be valuable for promoting participation, its influence should not be overstated, and further research is needed to fully understand its long-term effects. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

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This paper draws on original rigorous research conducted in an extensive range of local, national and international state archives, sporting repositories and personal papers. In focus is the 1948 London Olympic Games, the Olympic movement and a 'new' phase in Irish–British relations involving international sport. Here, for the first time, we elucidate the role of non-state sportive diplomats who, acting as cultural intermediaries, were involved in the production of ideas about the normative rules governing international jurisdiction and identity that prevented nations/states from being recognized on their own terms. The intricate details revealed here are made possible by a rigorous two-way traffic between sensitizing concepts and evidence: specifically, the quest for exciting significance by non-state actors, soft power struggles and 'patriot games' via the medium of international Olympic and athletic movements. The paper also makes two other important contributions: to sport in/and international relations and the politics of Olympic protests. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The Paralympics and more specifically Paralympic athletes can be viewed as a useful microcosm of global politics. As a Paralympic athlete, this paper offers an autoethnographic account of my experiences at multiple international para-athletics competitions where I witnessed modern International Relations play out in interesting, useful, and important ways. Many have argued the discipline of International Relations has struggled to keep pace with global politics and has not adequately accounted for the major issues now facing populations falling broadly under the categories of poverty, disease and climate change. The international political economy of the Paralympic Games forms a complex global assemblage that shines a spotlight on many of these issues by bringing together athletes affected by these sorts of modern challenges from all over the world. This paper will make use of my own experiences at the London 2012 Paralympics as well as several other major international para-sporting events in order to analytically explore how the Paralympics as global assemblage can serve as a case study for scholars of IR to better understand the challenges facing global populations. Better understanding these challenges will allow for the development of more accurate and analytically useful theories and approaches to global politics. An assemblage approach will be employed in order to develop a flat ontology that moves beyond traditional conceptions of challenges faced in global politics or what athletes ought to look like competing on the global stage. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Objective: To describe the implementation of a health monitoring programme for Norwegian Paralympic and Olympic candidates over five consecutive Olympic and Paralympic Games cycles (London 2012, Sochi 2014, Rio de Janeiro 2016, PyeongChang 2018 and Tokyo 2020).Methods: Athletes were monitored for 12-18 months preparing for the games using a weekly online questionnaire (OSTRC-H2) with follow-up by physicians and physiotherapists, who provided clinical care and classified reported problems.Results: Between 2011 and 2020, 533 Olympic and 95 Paralympic athletes were included in the monitoring programme, with an overall response of 79% to the weekly questionnaire and a total observation period of 30 826 athlete weeks. During this time, 3770 health problems were reported, with a diagnosis rate of 97%. The average prevalence of health problems at any given time was 32% among Olympic athletes and 37% among Paralympic athletes. Acute traumatic injuries represented the greatest burden for Olympic team sport athletes, and illnesses represented the greatest burden for Olympic endurance and Paralympic athletes. On average, Olympic athletes lost 27 days and Paralympic athletes lost 33 days of training per year due to health problems.Conclusion: Conducting long-term health monitoring of Olympic and Paralympic athletes is challenging, particularly because athletes travel frequently and often relate to many medical providers. This programme has been implemented and improved within Team Norway for five Olympic and Paralympic cycles and during this time we believe it has helped protect our athletes' health. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Against a backdrop of rising youth violence in the UK, the issue of gang policing has once more risen to prominence. Intense debates surrounding police cuts have led to renewed calls for a 'war on gangs', echoing earlier responses to England's summer of violent disorder in 2011. Drawing on a long-term ethnographic study of policing in the London Borough of Newham, this paper reports on a case-study of gang policing during a similarly fraught political moment. In the run-up to the 2012 London Olympics, a street-based group of minority ethnic youth – the so-called Portuguese Mafia (PGM) – became the primary focus for gang policing in the Borough. Though the group did not self-identify as a gang, their activities were inflated and became the subject of a targeted enforcement initiative. These distortions, we argue, resulted from the influence of political decision-making on the working practices of front-line police officers, amplified in a climate of austerity. Through the reconstruction of this 'natural history', we seek to contribute an empirical account of the ambiguities inherent in police definitions of gangs, and the discriminatory consequences of categorisation. Theoretically, the paper seeks to contribute a critical sociological account of gangs and gang policing that bridges extant objectivist and constructivist readings of gangs through engagement with the Bourdieusian concept of 'field'. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Objective: Describe the self-reported prevalence and nature of Olympic-career injury and general health and current residual symptoms in a self-selected sample of retired Olympians.Methods: 3357 retired Olympians from 131 countries completed a cross-sectional online survey, distributed by direct email through World Olympians Association and National Olympian Associations databases. The survey captured Olympic sport exposure, significant training and competition injury history (lasting >1 month), general health (eg, depression) during the athlete's career, and current musculoskeletal pain and functional limitations.Results: 55% were men (44% women, 1% unknown), representing 57 sports (42 Summer, 15 Winter), aged 44.7 years (range 16-97). A total of 3746 injuries were self-reported by 2116 Olympians. This equated, 63.0% (women 68.1%, men 59.2%) reporting at least one significant injury during their Olympic career. Injury prevalence was highest in handball (82.2%) and lowest in shooting (40.0%) for Summer Olympians; and highest in alpine skiing (82.4%) and lowest in biathlon (40.0%) for Winter Olympians. The knee was the most frequently injured anatomical region (20.6%, 120 median days severity), followed by the lumbar spine (13.1%, 100 days) and shoulder/clavicle (12.9%, 92 days). 6.6% of Olympians said they had experienced depression during their career. One-third of retired Olympians reported current pain (32.4%) and functional limitations (35.9%).Conclusions: Almost two-thirds of Olympians who completed the survey reported at least one Olympic-career significant injury. The knee, lumbar spine and shoulder/clavicle were the most commonly injured anatomical locations. One-third of this sample of Olympians attributed current pain and functional limitations to Olympic-career injury. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Legacy promises from London 2012 meant that those working in sport in local, non-host areas in Britain were expected to facilitate more sporting opportunities for local citizens. Legacy preparations occurred in the context of many other constraints that stemmed from Government budget cuts and provision of leisure-time sport and other leisure activities. This paper presents new evidence on a significantly under-researched area of leisure studies, namely: the experiences of those delivering leisure-sport opportunities in a non-host city and how they responded to national legacy promises. Using Elias's concept of the double-bind, we explain the 'crisis situation' in which some local sports workers were enmeshed and how their acceptance of 'fantasy-laden beliefs' of expected demonstration effects from mega-events exacerbated their 'crisis'. We also draw upon participants' post-Games reflections to consider how future host nations may wish to leverage greater leisure-sporting legacies from a mega-event. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Will a global sporting event positively affect the market? Can sponsor companies expect an increase in their stock price? This study tests the semi-strong form market efficiency theory by analysing the stock prices of 16 selected companies that were official sponsors for the London 2012 Olympic Games. This study uses the risk-adjusted event study methodology to test the hypothesis that the risk adjusted return of the stock price of the sample of 16 sponsor companies is significantly positively affected by this type of information on the event date. The evidence shows that the firms experienced positive gains to their stock price leading up to the event date, and little movement days after, confirming the semi strong form market efficiency theory. This being that no investor should be able to gain abnormal returns by using past information, when adjusting for risk, since the market has already incorporated it into the price. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper analyses the recent editions of Olympic Summer Games. It examines the changes and political, economical and cultural dimensions of mega-events, underlining the links among life, culture, mediascapes and cultural identities. The analysis starts with London Olympic Games 2012 and continues with the Games in Rio 2016: the primary changes in urban infrastructures and the social, political and economical transformation of the two cities together with the great impact of Olympic ceremonies in media images are introduced in the paper, with a particular reference to the symbolic representations of opening and closing ceremonies. The above mentioned events are an imaginative tour, which links knowledge, heritage, history and global values, demonstrating the interrelation between sport and other social spheres. Sport mega-events seem to create infinite world, connected with global and local culture. The opening and closing ceremonies represent also new symbolic values, and some 'economies of imagination', which reform urban infrastructures and open new social identity and heritage. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper examines the temporality of urban planning in contemporary London, especially with regard to the 2012 Olympic Games. I argue that planners and officials deployed a rhetoric of permanence to validate not only the Games themselves, but also the costly development and infrastructural changes in the city as well as human displacements. Specifically, a decentralized network of planners, officials, consultants, and administrators used temporal concepts such as ‘legacy’, ‘sustainability’, and ‘regeneration’ in describing the benefits of hosting the Games, all of which purposely ignored the temporary and unsustainable nature of the two-week sporting event. I further argue that this rhetoric could be sustained only through an implication that the Olympic site—and East London as a whole—was in a state of ruin, a state which could be ameliorated through the production of this sporting ‘mega-event’. Above all, the Olympics attempt to rhetorically mitigate their own temporary, ‘pop-up’ quality for the sake of an urban settler colonialism. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article examines the diverse forms of public opposition, protest, criticism, and complaint in the United Kingdom on the staging of the 2012 Olympic and Paralympic Games in London. Our discussion draws heavily on empirical research, primarily fieldwork and interviews in East London with local residents, opposition groups, business people, politicians, and other stakeholders. The article is separated into three main parts. First, we explore the setting and political–economic context for London 2012. The main Olympic setting—the London Borough of Newham—features very high levels of poverty and ethnic diversity. We argue that London 2012 represented a form of “festival capitalism” that was part of a broader set of “New Right two-step” policies in poor urban areas, involving initial Keynesian investment, followed by a deeper and far-reaching array of neo-liberal measures. Second, in the main part of the article, we identify and examine, in turn, six forms of public conflict, criticism, and complaint that centered on the Games, specifically national criticisms (e.g., on distribution of Olympic resources), local criticisms (e.g., on lack of jobs and business benefits), issue-specific campaigns (e.g., on the environment), “glocal” protests against specific nations and sponsors (e.g., campaigns against BP, Dow, and Rio Tinto), neo-tribal transgressions and situationist spectacles (e.g., mass cycle rides near Olympic venues), and anti-Olympic forums and demonstrations (e.g., critical web sites, multi-group marches). Third, we set out briefly the importance of conducting research into critics and opponents of sport mega-events, and discuss different arguments on how the social impact of protest movements might have been intensified at London 2012. The findings in this article may be extended to examine critical public responses to the hosting of other mega-events in different settings. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

Drawing on the case of the Olympics, and in particular on the role of London in securing, planning and administering the 2012 Summer Games, this article investigates how cities participate in world politics beyond the traditional avenues of the international system. Tracing how the planning of a sporting mega-event has been woven into London's international role as a global 'green' leader, the article seeks to shed some light on the diplomatic role of cities, as well as on how sport has been used in relation to city diplo-macy and urban governance. The Olympics offer a unique window on the multi-scalar reach of these subnational authorities, allowing for substantial public diplomacy initiatives. Major cities such as Lon-don, as the article argues, can exert a pervasive diplomatic influence, and planning for sporting events can extend their capacity to link 'city diplomacy' with tangible impacts on everyday lives. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Hosting the 2012 Olympic and Paralympic Games, the largest and most prestigious sporting events in the world, was a privilege for London. This paper follows a paper published in this journal prior to the Olympic and Paralympic Games ('Transport planning for an Olympic Games', Journal of Urban Regeneration and Renewal, Vol. 5, No. 4) in which, as Commissioner of Transport for London (TfL), the author set out the strategic and detailed transport planning effort that was undertaken before the Games. Now that the Games have finished, the author has revisited this topic to set out how London's transport networks performed during the Games and how TfL is using this unique experience by working with others to ensure a lasting legacy following on from the Games, particularly in supporting the continued regeneration of east London [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper will examine the ways in which race, multiculturalism and nation have been constructed, used and evoked in the London 2012 Olympics bid, branding and promotion. The paper will focus on the two-pronged strategy promoting modern, diverse, multicultural Britain and the more conservative traditional, historic Britain, and the tensions and contradictions between these. These are tensions and contradictions which have been exposed and exacerbated by 7/7, recession and riots, as well as the shift in government from New Labour to the Tory-led coalition. The paper will examine the ways in which race and nation have played a role historically and politically in the Olympics, and then examine the place and use of race in three aspects of the 2012 Games: the bid and branding, the opening ceremony and the representation of the athletes themselves. The paper will argue that far from being progressive and inclusive as has been promoted and claimed, what has occurred around London 2012 has been a conservative hegemonic re-articulation of a 'Britishness' that is 'progressive' and includes immigrants and black and minority ethnic individuals based on a logic of integration and performance that does not threaten, criticise or make demands of more traditional visions of Britishness. Moreover, athletes such as Mo Farah have been positioned in such a way as to challenge racism and xenophobia and re-brand Britain as inclusive in narrow terms and at the same time serve as aspirational individual role models through which to set expectations for and make demands of immigrant, black and minority ethnic youth and wider communities. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

I explore the contribution that emotions made to the London 2012 Olympic and Paralympic Games, but from a perspective that downplays individualised or embodied analysis of emotion, and oppositions between the 'emotional' and the 'rational'. Instead, emotions are understood as one component within a broader 'flow of affect' within an Olympic assemblage of physical, biological, cultural, social and economic relations. I supply an 'affective' sociology of the Games, focusing upon the capacities produced in competitors, audiences, media, spaces and physical entities such as the stadia and Olympic Park, and how these together produced the Games and their legacy. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The London 2012 Olympic and Paraolympic Games drew together tens of thousands of people in the form of athletes, organisers, media, VIPs, public and many more groups and individuals. With the growth in smart phones and tablets coupled with the ever expanding volume and range of content accessed via Aps and browsers, this huge volume of people expected connectivity from their mobile devices during their time on the Olympic sites. It was BT's role in the games as the official communications services partner to deliver Wi-Fi connectivity across the venues, covering the range of users from the public, athletes, organisers and ticket scanners. This paper examines this state of the art Wi-Fi solution. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Objectives: To investigate hygiene practices of caterers at large events in order to: support the production of guidance on catering at such events; to compare hygiene standards at weekends with other times in the week; and to learn lessons in preparation for the London Olympics in 2012. Study design: UK-wide study of caterers at large events, including questionnaires on hygiene procedures and microbiological examination of food, water and environmental samples. Methods: In total, 1364 samples of food, water, surface swabs and cloths were collected at 139 events, by local authority sampling officers, and transported to laboratories for microbiological analysis. Results: Eight percent of food samples were of an unsatisfactory quality, and a further 2% contained potentially hazardous levels of Bacillus spp. A significantly higher proportion of unsatisfactory food samples were taken from vendors without adequate food safety procedures in place. Fifty-two percent of water samples, 38% of swabs and 71% of cloths were also unsatisfactory. The majority of samples (57%) were collected on Saturdays, Sundays or bank holidays. Environmental swab results were significantly poorer at weekends compared with other days of the week. Conclusions: This study reinforces the fact that food hygiene is a continuing cause for concern in mobile vendors, and indicates a need for an ongoing programme of training and monitoring of caterers in preparation for the London Olympics. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The London 2012 Olympic Games was a true spectacle of sporting achievement. It also provided the impetus for official organisations, news media and individuals to turn the vast amount of data into map form. This paper provides an outline of some of the cartographic highlights (and one or two lowlights) that the Olympics inspired. There were some great maps on view and also some interesting trends emerging, particularly in terms of web maps and web maps used as infographics. In particular, the Dorling cartogram saw widespread use, particularly to map medal tallies by online news media. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The London 2012 Olympic Park transport and environmental management schemes framework was established through the planning process and subsequent S106 of the London 2012 Olympic Games and Paralympic Games 2007 planning consent. It provides a mechanism to allow the host boroughs to mitigate the effects of the London 2012 Olympic Park development through environmental transport management procedures, rather than only junction capacity schemes. This satisfied the boroughs' sustainability ambitions and assisted delivery of the Olympic Delivery Authority's primary sustainability aims. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The 14th Olympiad took place in London in 1948. Post-war reconstruction had barely started in the battered host city and all the venues for the Games were lent by private or public organizations with little expenditure for rebuilding allocated. This paper addresses the emergence and after-lives of the venues of the 1948 Games and examines their significance to the United Kingdom's capital city as it prepares for its third Olympiad: the 2012 Games in Stratford. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Within this article, I focus on a number of productive scholarly avenues to which sociological analysis of London 2012 might want to attend. Understanding major sporting events – and thus the Olympic Games – as inextricably entangled with the media-industrial complex, I suggest London 2012 as a commodity spectacle that will emphasize gleaming aesthetics, a (sporting) city and nation collapsed into (simple) tourist images, and the presentation of a particular expression of self within the logics of the global market. In so doing, and by peeking behind the seductive, corporate-inspired veil of material and symbolic regeneration, image, strategy and legacy, we, as a field, can ask crucial questions about whose histories, whose representations and which peoples matter to, and for, the sporting spectacle. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

During the summer of 1906, the British Olympic Association (BOA) came to the International Olympic Committee's late rescue by agreeing to host the Games of the IV Olympiad in London, after the Eternal City Rome was forced to officially relinquish its obligation to stage the Games. With no governmental financial assistance and less than seventeen months in which to prepare, the BOA endeavoured to stage the largest international sports gathering, at that time, in modern history. The short period leading up to the 1908 London Games again revealed the currents of British opposition to the Olympic concept, as well as the bitter internal squabbling that existed among the Home-Nations. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Although major events can have 'spillover' effects on surrounding areas, their benefits are normally spatially concentrated. This automatically privileges certain neighbourhoods. Such outcomes may be difficult to justify politically, as resources to stage events are usually obtained from different public and private agencies that may be reluctant to favour a confined geographical area. This paper analyses opportunities for more diffuse spatial dissemination. Recognition of 'intangible' benefits means that event initiatives can be pursued even where there is no permanent physical legacy from an event, or where that legacy is concentrated elsewhere. In this paper, existing literature is reviewed and framed within a conceptual structure that highlights the three main ways peripheral areas can benefit from events for which they are not the principal host. These are: through 'incidental' effects, via the 'partial dislocation' of an event and by deploying various forms of 'leverage'. The paper then discusses three UK cases to illustrate this framework: the 2012 Olympic Games, the 2007 Tour de France and the 2002 Commonwealth Games. The paper concludes that the potential for considerable benefits for both core hosts and peripheral areas means stakeholders at both scales should be encouraged to make policy interventions to disperse event effects. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Objective: To undertake a review of the literature relating to public health planning and interventions at previous summer Olympic and Paralympic Games and other relevant major summer sporting events or mass gatherings, with a focus on official publications and peer-reviewed articles. Study design: Literature review. Methods: A literature review was undertaken using art biomedical databases and a freetext search using Google to widen the search beyond peer-reviewed publications. Search terms used were: Olympics; Paralympics; mass gatherings; mass gathering medicine; sporting events; weather; planning; and organisation. Citations within articles were searched to identify additional references that would inform this review. This literature review concentrates on the public health aspects of population care at mass gatherings, particularly the Olympic and Paralympic Games which are set over several weeks, focusing on surveillance, prevention and health service quality. Results: The literature identified 10 areas of public health planning: public health command centre and communication; surveillance, assessment and control; environmental health and safety; infectious disease outbreaks; implications of weather conditions; health promotion; travel information; economic assessments; public transport and reduction of asthma events; and preparing athletes for potential allergies. The following themes emerged as crucial factors for the success of any public health interventions at Olympic and Paralympic Games: detailed planning of deliverables; preidentification of critical success factors; management of risk; detailed contingency planning; and full testing of all plans prior to the event. Conclusions: The 2012 Olympic Games will provide an exciting challenge for public health providers and systems. Preparation requires early detailed planning of policies, procedures and on-site health promotion events, in addition to helping to set up the surveillance and monitoring systems that will capture public health activity alongside medical activity. Learning from the Literature review will support the identification of critical success factors and help to formulate recommendations that will allow optimal utilization of public health initiatives. All plans require full costings in advance which are supported by internal and external health-related agencies, voluntary organizations and sponsors. A risk assessment should be undertaken as part of the planning process Leading to risk management plans for mitigating identified potential risks. All surveillance and monitoring systems, communication, policies and procedures will require full testing prior to commencement of the Games. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Cultural policy-makers and analysts have recently focussed upon the particularly fruitful connections between 'culture' and sports. Yet for a long time the Olympic Games have involved an attempted articulation of the cultural-artistic and sportive aspects of human existence. This paper analyses the various attempts to conjoin the separate realms of 'culture' and sports that have characterised the Modern Olympics, as Olympic officials and local organising committees have endeavoured to rekindle the original culture-sports nexus of the ancient Greek games. A historical-sociological account of such matters, focussed on the key theme of structural differentiation, is laid out and used to account both for the nature of the 'Cultural Olympiad' held at the Sydney 2000 Games and for the cultural events currently being organised for the London 2012 Games. Some suggestions are offered as to how future planning might deal with the problems attendant upon attempts to conjoin two apparently wholly separate and antagonistic realms. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Despite the expanding research base around sporting events and crime, little is known about the impact of mega-sporting events, such as the Olympics, on crime. In this article, we seek to expand upon the small literature around mega-sporting events by examining police-recorded crime data for the period before, during, and after the Beijing 2008, London 2012, and Rio de Janeiro 2016 Summer Olympic games both temporally and spatially. The analyses indicate that the effects of the Olympics on crime varies by location and crime type. All crimes significantly decreased in Olympic and non-Olympic related areas for Beijing, while only assault decreased in London regardless of geographic location. Increases were observed for robbery and bicycle theft in London and Rio de Janeiro, though only in Olympic areas. Our findings suggest mega-sporting events may have a differential effect on crime across cities as hundreds of thousands of tourists generate more offending opportunities at the Olympics. • The impact of the occurrence of Olympics on crime patterns in Beijing, London, and Rio de Janeiro is tested. • The effects of the Olympics on crime varies by location and crime type. • All crimes significantly decreased in Olympic and non-Olympic related areas for Beijing. • Increases were observed for robbery and bicycle theft in Olympic areas of London and Rio de Janeiro. • Mega-sporting events have a differential effect on crime across cities due to the unequal deployment of the security forces. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]