Abstract
The international and commercialised recognition of the Olympic Games can bring prestigious benefits to a country’s Olympic Games legacy. Due to this, candidate-cities have capitalised on this opportunity to leverage their bids to successfully secure hosting rights. Consequently, commodifying the bidding process has intensified the competition and reduced the number of bids over recent years thus jeopardising the legitimacy of the Olympic Games bids to its true values of Olympism. Utilising a semi-systematic literature review, this research investigates the extent and in what ways the Olympic Games bids have embodied the values of Olympism. Specifically exploring within three case-study examples; the Beijing 2008; the London 2012; and the Rio De Janeiro 2016 Summer Olympic Games. Results noted four overarching themes influencing the leveraging of bids; Economical, Political, Globalisation and the Public (Social). Further, and to a vague extent, the selected Olympic Games bids embodied the values of Olympism as secondary and appear to be a by-product of a prominent agenda that reflects the ebb-and-flow of politics and economics of the respective host-city. Thus, conceptualising the shortcomings and compromised Olympic Games legacies of host-cities and its communities. Interestingly, by examining the Olympism philosophy and legacy this may not be an issue due to its abstract construction and lack of precision, which has enabled great flexibility. As a resolution, this research calls for the values to be measurable with implementation of evaluative committees that span beyond the Olympic Games to ensure Olympism values and its legacy are successfully embodied.
Presenters
Sophia Mohamed HarithResearch Assistant, Centre of Sport and Exercise Science, University of Malaya, Malaysia
Details
Presentation Type
Theme
Sports Management & Commercialization
KEYWORDS
Olympics; Bidding Process; Olympism; Leveraging; Legacy
