Abstract
The immense growth in popularity and the universal acceptance of the Olympic ideals has led, amongst others, to an increase in all aspects of Games participation, organization, complexity and cost. Increases in the number of sports, disciplines and events, as well as competing nations, athletes and attending media, have led to a quadrupling in numbers and requirements in all Games-related areas. These increases have affected not only the number of technical officials, workforce, security, volunteers, accommodation and transport, but most notably the number and size of venues and their standards. Through literature review this paper discusses the key factors in connection to the increasing scale and scope of the Olympics and outlines the underlying problems, whilst simultaneously shedding light on the diverse and controversial attributes ascribed to sports venues, which impede their post-Games management.
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Notes
- 1.
With the addition of women’s boxing at London 2012, all the Olympic sports are now open to athletes of both genders (Chappelet and Parent 2015).
- 2.
Official website of the Paralympic Movement (www.paralympic.org).
- 3.
In his candidature manifesto for the IOC Presidency, he wrote “Common sense should incite us to look at ways of slightly reducing the size, cost and complexity of the Games in order to make them less vulnerable to the future. This approach would enable all continents and regions to organize the Games more easily and would encourage geographical rotation” (Chappelet 2014).
- 4.
It has often been noted cynically in the media that, generally, the only amateurs left in the Olympic Movement are the Games organizers (Pound 2016).
- 5.
The One-China Policy prevents the diplomatic recognition of both Beijing and Taipei simultaneously.
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Giannakopoulou, M. (2020). Olympic Gigantism and the Multifaceted Concept of Sports Venues. In: Katsoni, V., Spyriadis, T. (eds) Cultural and Tourism Innovation in the Digital Era. Springer Proceedings in Business and Economics. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-36342-0_9
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