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Since their inception in 1896, the Olympic Games have brought together over 400 countries, uniting fans worldwide as they cheer for their national athletes. However, the environmental impact of hosting the Olympics often goes unseen. The extensive construction of stadiums, hotels, and infrastructure necessary for the Games causes significant environmental degradation. The International Olympic Committee (IOC) and the Olympic Charter currently lack specific environmental standards for host cities, leading to unsustainable practices driven by economic incentives. This Note argues for the adoption of stringent environmental standards within the Olympic Charter to safe- guard the environment. Historically, the IOC only recognized environmental sustainability as a priority after the 1992 Albertville Games’ environmental failures. Despite this, the sustainability of the Games has deteriorated. The self-reporting bias in assessing host cities’ environmental credentials exacerbates the issue, as no independent verification exists. To enhance environmental protection, the IOC could implement best management practices through contractual obligations or interna- tional treaty law, ensuring compliance. Additionally, reducing the scale of the Games or rotating them among designated cities could minimize environmental impact. Establishing an independent body for environmental audits could also ensure transparency and honesty in host city selection. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper examines the growth of the Olympic Games against that of former host cities to understand whether this mega-event may have 'outgrown' its hosts. The increasing hosting requirements and governments' expansive use of mega-events as tools for urban development would suggest that the 'Olympic city' – a term we use for describing the size of the Olympics as hosted in different cities over the decades – has grown at a faster rate than former host cities. The analysis contrasts historical indicators that capture the evolving size of planning for the event based on four dimensions – sport, spectators, marketing and costs – as well as the urban dimension of hosting experiences (venues and infrastructure) with city trajectories based on demographic and economic indicators. This is done through a longitudinal analysis of former Olympic host cities from the 1960s and 1970s and from which continuous longitudinal data are available: Tokyo, Munich, and Montreal. The findings indicate that the Olympic city has grown more strongly than these former host cities, although not uniformly across trajectories. This gives evidence for the need to review the size of mega-event impacts if they ought to continue to generate interest in hosting them in the future. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article investigates the use of sports mega-events by nations in East Asia to leverage 'soft power'. The focus is on Japan and its 'soft power' strategies, building on existing work by adding a novel tripartite analysis to understand Japan's domestic, regional and international rationale for hosting sports mega-events. The empirical data for this study is drawn from government documents and bespoke in-depth interviews (N = 10) with experts involved in sport. This, alongside engagement with the extant literature in the field, allows a more nuanced understanding of Japan's rationale behind hosting the 1964 Tokyo Olympics, the 2019 Rugby World Cup and the city's second hosting of an Olympics, the 2020(1) summer Games. Key findings include the use of sports mega-events to 'open up' Japan's society and bolster domestic politics, to maintain their regional status competing with China and South Korea and to improve the nation's global status. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article discusses the potential for the Youth Olympic Games (YOG) to provide a model for reforming the Olympic Games (OG) and making them more sustainable and efficient. The YOG has successfully utilized existing and temporary venues, making it a more cost-effective and environmentally friendly event. It has also prioritized local attendance and implemented social media and new media strategies to enhance its reach. By incorporating these successful elements from the YOG, the OG could reduce costs, increase accessibility, and improve sustainability. The article suggests that the YOG could play a leadership role in redefining venue usage and expenditure practices within the framework of the OG. [Extracted from the article]

Interest in how local communities can positively benefit from the hosting of large-scale events has grown exponentially. Where most research has focused on the host city, nonhost regions have the potential to benefit greatly, yet little research has examined how these communities can achieve these benefits. This study examined the leverage process in a nonhost area for the London 2012 Olympics to consider the opportunities and challenges of such a task. Theoretically informed by the event leverage model, this case study used document analysis and semistructured interviews with 10 key stakeholders involved in the leveraging process. Findings reveal that effective event leverage in a nonhost area requires the establishment of early leadership and strategic alliances and highlights a significant role the specific leveraging team played. Partners found it difficult to continue with committing to event leverage due to conflicts of interests and goal misalignment. Theoretical contributions are also discussed. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Based on the theory of business cycle and economic growth, the recent five Olympic host countries are taken as the research objects to compare the economic data of 35 countries from 2000 to 2018 with the synthesis method. It claims that: Only the Beijing Olympic Games played a positive role in China's long-term economic growth, while the Sydney Olympic Games' contribution to Australia's economic boost delayed for four years; The Athens Olympic Games powered Greece's economic development in six to seven years after the event, but it fell into a huge crisis due to the burden of the Olympics; The London and Rio Olympics helped to speed up the economy during the bidding period, but they actually slowed down the overall economy in the 3-4 years before the official games. The conclusion is drawn that there exists significant differences of long-term economic growth among various countries. The major channels of hosting Olympics to impact the economy include local consumption, regional investment, foreign trade, natural environment and social development, but only the moderate intervention from a capable government can effectively push the channels above to reach a positive result. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Collective ideologies are a feature of the Olympic Games as individual athletes represent entire nations. Prior research has explored one dimension of Olympic ideology, finding a link between national pride and hosting the Olympics. This paper extends the literature by considering a wider variety of ideological indicators, including willingness to fight for country, confidence in government, and beliefs about different political systems. The results using a series of global surveys across several decades suggest that success at the Olympics and hosting of the Olympics does not guarantee greater citizen support or government legitimacy. Performance in the Summer Olympics has no consistent effect on the ideological views of survey respondents. In terms of hosting the Summer Olympics, host nations experience an increase in willingness to fight but a decrease in government confidence. These effects vary based upon the level of democratic quality of the host nations. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Introduction. The positive legacy of the Olympics is often cited by the International Olympic Committee and national organizers. Some scholars, however, question an uncritical approach to an exclusively positive economic legacy. The aim of this study is to evaluate the impact of hosting the Olympics on infrastructure development, with a potential impact on economic growth in the form of Gross Domestic Product (GDP) in three phases of seven Olympic Games organised in Europe in recent years. Material and methods. The effect of a particular Olympic period on the GDP was analysed using a difference-in-difference technique in which the difference between each of the analysed seven host countries' GDPs and those of a reference set of countries was obtained. Each time, as part of the observation, an event time period was distinguished covering all three phases of the event: the preparatory phase, the event phase and the post-event phase. Results. For the Winter Olympic Games, no statistically significant positive results are observed in the long term, which may indicate a very limited importance of the economic legacy of these events for potential host countries. In the case of Summer Olympic Games, the positive impact of the organization of these events in the post-event phase is noticeable Conclusions. The obtained results confirm the ambiguous impact of Olympic Games on the hosts' economies and are in line with the attitude of many scholars to an uncritical approach to the only positive legacy of these events. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Every four years, the Olympics are hosted in a different country. As they are becoming bigger and more diverse through the years, their impact is growing deeper and greater on the economic, environmental and the political status quo of the hosting country. Therefore, one of the main challenges of these countries is to guaranty the event's performance while planning a sustainable and profitable outcome. That being said, within the context of the ongoing digitalization & robotization of business logistics, engineers have started to imagine alternatives to palliate to the non-sustainable infrastructures that are being built each year to welcome the Olympics. Thus, these massive innovations could revolutionize the organization as well as the return on investment of the Olympic Games. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The first four months of 2022 marked a turn toward difficult terrain in the China-South Korea relationship, including the challenge of managing conflicting expressions of patriotism during the Beijing Olympics. The Olympics opening ceremonies were attended by National Assembly Speaker Park Byung-seug, South Korea's second highest ranking official by protocol, despite the US imposition of a "diplomatic boycott." North Korea's dozen missile tests since January 2022 included a "new" ICBM launch in March ahead of the 110th anniversary of Kim Il Sung's birth and Yoon Suk-yeol's presidential inauguration. The latest tests drove China-South Korea dialogue, new US sanctions, and reassertions from Beijing that US actions remain the decisive factor in resolving the peninsula problem. Beijing's hosting of the Olympics and Pyongyang's commemorations of Kim anniversaries presented opportunities for jointly reaffirming China-North Korea friendship. Despite signs of rebounding economic activity after the resumption of cross-border freight train operations in January, China's COVID-19 lockdowns remain a source of uncertainty. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Based on evidence from nine countries that hosted the Olympic Games, we show that relative to firms domiciled in non-Olympics-hosting countries, firms domiciled in Olympics-hosting countries engage in more cross-listing in the years following the Olympics. The effect of hosting the Olympics on firms' cross-listing activities is more pronounced for firms domiciled in host countries with better performance in the Games; for firms domiciled in countries hosting the Summer Olympics; and for domestic firms. We also find that cross-listing firms domiciled in an Olympics-hosting country tend to cross-list in foreign countries with a greater institutional distance from the host country after the Olympics. Finally, we document a positive effect of Olympics-hosting on the consequences of cross-listing. Taken together, our findings suggest that hosting the Olympics improves the international reputation of the host country, which helps firms domiciled in that country to overcome the liability of foreignness when making cross-listing decisions. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Since the People's Republic of China re-joined the International Olympic Committee (IOC) in 1979, Beijing, Harbin, and Nanjing have obtained the central government's approval to bid for the Summer Olympics, the Winter Olympics, the Summer Youth Olympics, and the Winter Youth Olympics six times. Interestingly, Premiers Li Peng, Zhu Rongji, and Li Keqiang delivered words of support after Beijing's applications to host the 2000 Summer Olympics, the 2008 Summer Olympics, and the 2022 Winter Olympics were initiated, whereas Premiers Zhu Rongji and Wen Jiabao remained silent after Harbin and Nanjing's applications to host the 2010 Winter Olympics, the 2012 Winter Youth Olympics, and the 2014 Summer Youth Olympics were launched. Through reviewing key-players' memoirs, official yearbooks, media reports, and scholarly works, this paper aims to explain the reasons behind the above inconsistency. Its findings conclude that domestic and international political factors consistently determined enthusiasm or indifference of the head of government towards these Chinese cities' quest to host the IOC-governed sporting mega-events. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

China has dreamt of hosting the Olympic Games for a hundred years, and He Zhenliang dedicated most of his professional and personal life to fulfilling this dream. Through a review of academic and policy literature, expert interviews, and historical analysis, this article aims to review He's achievements, particularly in respect of the two Beijing Bids to host the Summer Games of 2000 and 2008. He represented 'the voice of China' in the IOC and acted as a bridge by communicating China's progress to the world and promoting the spirit and culture of the Olympics within China. Although He won international acclaim, some of his actions were controversial and thus raised opposition among the Chinese. This paper outlined the nature of He's success and his influence at home and abroad. In particular it has sought to explain the clash between He Zhenliang and Yuan Weimin over bidding strategy and responsibility for success, as more than simply a clash of egos and personalities, but rather also as the product of a clash of administrative and management styles and approaches adopted in the western dominated context of the IOC and in China's political hierarchy; and of political systems and ideology in both locations. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Legacy research has grown in the last decade, particularly within the field of sport studies, with numerous books and articles examining the physical, social, and environmental legacies of mega-events, including the Olympic Winter Games. As a result, an increasing amount of research on the Olympic movement can fall under the category of Olympic legacy research, despite the boundaries remaining blurry of what exactly Olympic legacy research includes and excludes. The broad themes of bidding, hosting, and reflecting on the Olympic Winter Games appear through the rigorous historical examination of issues impacting a specific winter Olympics, or multiple games hosted by the same nation. New research abounds on the multiple and emerging legacies of the Olympic Winter Games. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Kraków was one of the cities which withdrew from the 2022 winter Olympics bidding process. It dropped its bid after residents voted against the local authorities' plan. The games were to be organized together with Slovakia. The initial positive public reception was based on the assumption that the games might bring in investment, boost the economy and increase tourism. The opposition against Krakow's bid quickly grew, reaching its peak in late 2013 and early 2014. The emergence and modus operandi of the anti-Olympic movement, which ultimately ended the bid, attracted the attention of Polish media. Critics raised the huge costs and the question of sports facilities which would have little use after the games. The group Kraków Against the Olympics called for a referendum, which demonstrated that the majority of the voters rejected the idea of organizing the games. Local and national media criticism, which grew following the bid committee's actions, contributed to the large-scale public opposition. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Projects to host the Olympic Winter Games have been subject to local referendums on at least 31 occasions, many more than for the summer Olympics. More than half of these referendums (18) have produced negative results, a phenomenon that has become more frequent since the turn of the twenty-first century. As a result, far fewer bids proceed to the final vote by members of the International Olympic Committee, which in turn has responded by changing its attribution procedure as of the 2030 winter games. A short history of winter Olympic referendums and an analysis of referendums during the most recent host-city attribution processes, for the 2022 and 2026 winter Olympics, demonstrate why so many referendums have gone against the winter Olympics. Examining the issues and arguments that led to negative votes reveals possible lessons for future bids. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Bidding for and hosting the Olympic games provides host cities with an opportunity for massive urban renewal, infrastructural improvements and major environmental remediation. Examination of this development in relation to the 1984 Sarajevo winter Olympics shows that both the bidding process and subsequent selection as the host city helped unleash different urban imaginaries concerning environmental policies in the city. Although the prime motivating factor for hosting the Olympics was to develop and promote tourism in Sarajevo, fulfilment of that goal proved to be closely related to several environmental endeavours, such as reducing pollution and improving infrastructure, including public transportation. Making certain environmental issues more visible and urgent, the Olympic bidding and ensuing preparations made possible the realization of urban imaginaries, both those originating long before the Sarajevo winter Olympics were even conceived and those emerging during the process of preparation for the event. This was particularly the case with respect to city planning ideas relating to the growing recognition of the need for the integration and interconnection of natural and urban environment elements. Along these lines and structured around a trope of Sarajevo as an 'environmentally sensitive city' a specific Sarajevo Olympic discourse emerged. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In the early 1960s the Canadian government in Ottawa saw international events, including major sporting events, as a way to bolster Canada's position globally. To support Calgary's bid for the 1968 Olympic Winter Games, the Canadian federal government formed an interdepartmental committee to work with the Calgary Olympic Development Association to try to improve the Canadian city's chance of winning the Olympic Games. The inclusion of sites within Banff National Park for some of the proposed competition venues required federal government involvement, but John Diefenbaker and Lester Pearson's governments became even more involved in the bid process than was typical at the time because of the importance with which they viewed the Olympic Games to their broader public diplomacy efforts. The extensive work to support Calgary's (ultimately unsuccessful) 1968 Olympic Winter Games bid foreshadowed the importance of federal government involvement in the bidding stages and not just their involvement in the organizing of the Olympic Games themselves. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]