Olympic Games

From Chinese Brand Culture to Global Brands uses a Chinese
perspective to examine the capacity of Chinese brand culture to
serve as a complement to existing models of brand globalization.
Moving away from the trend to study the managerial aspects of
Western brand building in Chinese contexts, we examine how
Chinese branding efforts express significant aspects of their own
brand culture. Our selection of Jay Chou, the 2008 Beijing Olympics
Opening ceremony, and Shanghai Tang, an aspiring global fashion brand with aesthetic roots in Chinese historical culture, as illustrative cases, is fully consistent with this unwritten and unspoken consensus around exploiting Chinese cultural specificity towards the global development of Chinese brands. Although these three cases may seem “under the radar,” we believe that, together, they provide unique insights into the relation between brands and Chinese culture, and offer intriguing possibilities for thinking about global Chinese brands.

Sydney Olympic Games pleased rowers with perfect organization of rowing regatta and beautiful weather. There was only a very light wind on each of the eight racing days, which allows us to compare results directly. Thus, we can conduct analysis of racing strategy, which is not always possible on major world regattas. Obviously, race strategy is not a dominating factor that determines performance in rowing. Higher physiological work capacity and better technique give undoubtable advantages. However, we observed very tough competition during the Games, where winners and medallists were divided not only by seconds but also by tenth and hundreds of seconds. Under these circumstances no one can say that rowing performances are very different and racing strategy could play decisive role in medals distribution. Moreover, the latest papers on racing strategy in rowing were published twenty years ago (Klavora, 1980). Two popular racing strategies and some psychological considerations were described in those papers. Leaving them without discussion we will try to analyse the following aspects of racing strategy:

Mega-events such as the Olympic Games are powerful tools for city-branding and urban development, carrying the ability to create lasting physical, political, social, and economic legacies. Waterfront redevelopment has become a primary mechanism for revitalizing urban spaces, especially through brownfield requalification, and the Olympics have not been indifferent to this trend. Several recent editions have engaged in the rehabilitation of urban waterfronts. To analyze common mistakes that may impair the quality of these interventions, we apply a revised version of a binary evaluation tool to nine such Olympic Waterfronts, starting with Barcelona 1992, assessing their contexts, budgets, programs, plans, and environmental integration. The results show that the Olympic Waterfront can drastically change the image of the city, greatly contributing to the perceived success of the event’s legacy and creating new urban centralities. However, the inadequate management in the planning, delive...

This paper presents some of the background to the development of the Youth Olympic Games, the principles underlying them, and some of the practical challenges in implementing them. Regarding the sports programme, modifications from the Olympic Games programme are noted, and innovations examined in terms of underlying values, such as immaturity and harm, talent identification and early specialisation, and the exploitation of young athletes. Issues arising from the first edition of the YOG include participation and equality of opportunity, selection of sports and nations for the programme, age and fairness, age falsification and cheating, victory and defeat, participation and excellence, and political discrimination, peace and international understanding. The paper concludes that, although many of the above issues present alreadyexisting challenges for the Olympic movement, albeit in a novel form, there were also some novel issues thrown up by a 'youth' edition of the Olympic Games, and many of the ethical and other value questions raised have much wider applications and consequences. It is to be hoped that ethical issues arising out of the YOG will provide a fresh impetus towards discussions as to the nature and promotion of ethical sport. Resumen Este artículo presenta parte del telón de fondo de la evolución de los juegos de la olimpiada de la juventud, sus principios subyacentes, y algunos de los desafíos prácticos a la hora de implementarlos. En cuanto al programa deportivo, se resaltan las modificaciones realizadas al programa de los juegos olímpicos, se examinan las innovaciones en cuanto a los valores subyacentes, tales como la inmadurez o el daño/lesión, la búsqueda del talento y la especialización prematura, y la explotación de los jóvenes atletas. Problemas que surgen de la primera edición de los JOJ [ YOG, siglas en inglés] incluyen la participación y la igualdad de oportunidad, la selección de deportes y naciones para el programa, la edad y la imparcialidad, la falsificación y la trampa, la victoria y la derrota, el participar y la excelencia, y la discriminación política, la paz y el entendimiento internacional. El artículo concluye con que, aunque muchos de los temas mencionados anteriormente presentan desafíos ya existentes en el movimiento olímpico, pero con matices diferentes, también hay algunos temas nuevos que han salido a relucir a raíz de una edición «de la juventud» de los juegos olímpicos, y que muchas de las cuestiones éticas y otras cuestiones de valor que surgen tienen aplicaciones y consecuencias mucho más amplias. Es de esperar que los asuntos éticos que se presentan a partir de los JOJ proporcionaran un nuevo ímpetu a las discusiones sobre la naturaleza y la promoción del deporte ético.

In 1951, Buenos Aires hosted the inaugural Pan-American Games. On February 25 of that year, a Greek athlete carried a flame flown specially from his country onto the stadium where the event's opening ceremonies took place and lit the cauldron. The uncertain character of the Greek flame transported to Buenos Aires alarmed many in Olympic circles. Confused and concerned, the International Olympic Committee (IOC) investigated the matter, which led to a rapid succession of policy changes seeking to regulate the use of flames in regional games. The flame flown from Greece to Buenos Aires for the 1951 Pan-American Games sparked an intense debate about the status of the Olympic flame. The IOC's recognition of the power of the Olympic flame ritual and its preoccupation with protecting it along with other Olympic symbols and terminology reveal the contours of the organization's ideology in this era and its relations with associated entities. The flame debate also illuminates the push by Pan-American Games' officials for autonomy. Clearly, Olympic officials recognized early in the 1950s that the globalization of the Olympic flame ritual required regulation if the IOC was to ensure control of this and its other symbolic resources.

It is usual to rank the participant countries in the Olympic Games in accordance with the number of medals they have won. An alternative ranking is suggested in this paper. This ranking is based on each countryÕs ability to win medals in relation to its available resources. This is an efficiency that can be measured with the help of data envelopment analysis (DEA) for which two models exist: the traditional DEA model, that takes into account variable returns to scale, and a DEA model based on the premise that the sum of the gains is zero (constant sum of outputs). It is the latter that is developed in this paper.

Many authors have been used different mathematical models to study the results of the Olympic Games. Some of these studies try to find new ways to establish alternative performance rankings while others evaluate the efficiency of the countries participating to the competition. Some use economics variables as inputs, others, included social aspects but in general, all of them chose the output orientation. In this work we are interested in studying the results of the Winter Olympic Games, held in Vancouver, Canada in 2010. We choose FDH (Free Disposal Hull) model but we decided to use input orientation. We brought into account the number of athletes of each country as input. As outputs, we use the number of gold, silver and bronze medals. The unit of analysis will be all the countries that took part in the games, even though they had not won any medals.

A protokoll, azon belül a sportprotokoll és sportrendezvényszervezés oktatásához készített egyetemi könyv összeállítása jól felépített, egymásra logikusan alapuló részekből tevődik össze, kezdve az ókori  pánhellén játékok bemutatásával az újkori Olimpiák protokoll és rendezvényszervezési szempontú részletes ismertetésén keresztül a hazai rendezésű világversenyek megvalósításásáig vezeti az Olvasót az egyes folyamatok legelemibb lépéseibe és fázisaiba.

Winning the right to host the Olympic Games is widely regarded as the most significant prize on offer in the never-ending contest between the world's leading cities for prestige and investment. This essay explores the implications and significance of being an Olympic city. After recognising the Olympics as a mega-event with inherent mega-project tendencies, it provides a chronological survey that shows the changing agendas that host cities have brought to bear on staging the Games. The increasing scale of their ambitions is noted, particularly with respect to urban regeneration and city rebranding, while also recognising the financial and human costs involved. The next part throws light on contemporary practice through a study of the proposals for the Lower Lea Valley in London's East End-the site of the future Olympic Park for the 2012 Summer Games. The conclusion suggests an evolving research agenda, framed particularly around the London 2012 Games and the notion of legacy.

In this paper, we analyze the spatial distribution of economic activity and labor market variables in Greece from 1980 to 2006. Using a distance-based method within a stochastic point process, we identify two periods with opposite trends regarding the concentration of economic activity in the Greek territory. First, twenty years (1980-1999) of a moderately decreasing trend of agglomeration due to systematic efforts by the Greek governments to decentralize the economic activity away from the capital. Second, a short period (2000-2006) of sharp increases in agglomeration, coinciding-in space and time-with the public and private investments for the 2004 Olympic Games in Athens. In the same period, a similar effect of a smaller size is observed on the concentration of the labor force, employment and unemployment.

This research project sets out to identify the economic factors that mega-sporting events like Olympic Games can have on host economies, which was conducted as a case study on London 2012 Olympic. The method of this research was qualitative and quantitative. In the first phase, a questionnaire was developed using interviews with 25 individuals from professors and experts in physical education, sport management, economics and achieve theoretical saturation, as well as the history of literature. Then Content validity of the questionnaire was approved by professors, and its reliability was calculated using Cronbach's alpha for economic factors 0.89. Secondly, according to a list of experts and professors in the field who have written and researched article, was sent questionnaire for them, which in ultimately were collected, necessary information than 120 people from the professoriate and Experts inside Country and outside Country. Thus the sampling was non-random targeted sampling methods and accessible. The descriptive statistics were used to calculate central tendency and dispersion, and inferential statistics were used to determine the KS test for normal data; Friedman test was done for ratings and ANOVA to compare the views of the software SPSS16 (P<0.05). Friedman test related to respondents Overall view showed that, Investment Promotion is the highest rating, and Increase of employment is the lowest rating. According to the results of the ANOVA are considered among the masters and experts, and professors and experts from abroad in economic factors, there is no significant difference at P <0.05.

В статье анализируются фотографии второй половины XIX в., на
которых представлена связь человеческого тела со спортивными
практиками. Одни фотографии были инструментом для научного
изучения движений тела, другие служили репрезентативным целям
и характеризовали роль спорта в европейской культуре, в частности
как одного из инструментов экспансии европейского образа жизни
на колониальных территориях. Анализ снимков спортсменов
позволил сделать выводы о том, что предпочтение в видах
спорта было также связано с представлениями о соотнесенности
пластических особенностей тела с социальным положением человекав обществе. Автор отмечает неразделимость популяризации
спорта, исследований движения микрочастиц и экспериментов
в области хронофотографии – все эти процессы сформировали
в конце XIX – начале XX в. то представление о движении, которое
было необходимо впоследствии для развития кинематографа. / The article analyzes the photos of the second half of
the 19th century, which present the relationship of
the human body with sports practices. Some photos
were an instrument for the scientific study of body
movements. Others served representative purposes and
characterized the role of sport in European culture,
in particular as one of the tools for the expansion
of the European lifestyle in the colonial territories.
The analysis of pictures of athletes, allowed to
draw conclusions that preference in sports was also
connected with ideas of correlation of plastic features
of a body with social position of the person in society.
The author notes the inseparability of promoting sports,
motion studies of microparticles and experiments in
the field of chronophotography–all of these processes
have formed in the late 19th–early 20th centuries
the vision of the movement, which was necessary
in consequence for the development of cinema.

This paper presents the virtual reality applications that the Foundation of the Hellenic World has produced associated with the Olympic Games in ancient Greece. The separate virtual reality shows are presented in terms of interactivity and educational value. The technical aspects of the productions are next explained in detail, with an emphasis on character animation, dynamics and occlusion culling for surround screen projection environments. These techniques were mostly utilised in the recent production regarding the ancient pentathlon, where much effort has been made to recreate the feeling of the games and help the user/spectator be an interacting part of the edutainment activity.

Under the banner of Olympic-led urban regeneration, municipal authorities of host cities London and Rio respectively have made colossal investments in large-scale infrastructure, security and surveillance technology to demonstrate their city's capacity in the global market. Olympic bid campaigns are underpinned with a range of positive socioeconomic bene ts related to economic prosperity, improved housing provision and revitalised infrastructure (Rojek, 2013). However, evidence shows that the large scale socio-spatial upheavals that come about as a result of hosting the Olympic games have a history of disproportionately a ecting marginalised and vulnerable members of society. As a result, direct and indirect forms of displacement like forced evictions, demolitions and gentri cation of public space have become a bitter legacy of the Olympic games (Silvestre and de Oliveira, 2012). The rhetoric of legacy, competitive cities and insecurity is weaponized to facilitate a 'state of exception' with the aim of restructuring the urban environment and extending the interests of private capital. This paper argues that in an increasingly neoliberal world -characterised by privatisation, deregulation, and market liberation- the Olympic games have evolved over time to enable displacement, social upheaval and increasingly punitive regimes of control. Indeed, the Olympic legacy has become the production of fear and surveillance and the long-term damage to liberty and civic freedoms.

The Olympic Games is a lot more than another commercial brand. Contrary to other mega events, the Games reflect a set of high ideals, along with the opportunity for the countries to be present at a global sporting arena. The goal of the International Olympic Committee (IOC) is to disseminate those educational and sport-related values to a wide audience. Consequently, its goal is facilitated by the Olympic Games.

Planning, designing, and implementing systems to support venue operations at the Olympic Games is complicated. The organizing committees must create designs that result in reliable, high-quality venue operations at reasonable cost. The organizational backdrop is unique. The organizing committee has a limited lifetime, it has no organizational memory, any learning disappears with its dissolution, and during its lifetime it must change rapidly from a function-oriented entity to a process-oriented one. The Athens 2004 Olympic Games Organizing Committee (ATHOC) used innovative techniques from management science, systems engineering, and information technology to change the planning, design, and operation of venues. We developed the Process Logistics Advanced Technical Optimization (PLATO) approach for the games. In the PLATO project, we developed a systematic process for planning and designing venue operations by using knowledge modeling and resourcemanagement techniques and tools. We developed a rich library of models that is directly transferable to future Olympic organizing committees and other sports-oriented events. The direct financial benefit to ATHOC was the reduction of the costs of managing venue operations by over $69.7 million. The success of the games raised Greece's international profile in terms of capabilities in managing large and complex projects which, in the medium to long term, will yield financial, political, and social benefits. Internationally, the PLATO legacy of its Olympics knowledge base will enable future organizers of large-scale events to reuse and customize the knowledge to gain benefits and reduce the financial burdens on governments and society.

O artigo apresenta as transformações desencadeadas na Barra da Tijuca, bairro da Zona Oeste da cidade do Rio de Janeiro. Trata dessas transformações no limite das fronteiras simbólicas do bairro a partir do contexto olímpico, iniciado em 2009, com a cidade do Rio de Janeiro sendo eleita cidade-sede dos Jogos Olímpicos de 2016. O artigo também mostra os impactos dessas intervenções urbanas no cotidiano de moradores locais, aparecendo conflitos que se estabeleceram com o processo de “produção da cidade olímpica”. Por fim, tendo matérias jornalísticas como fonte, procura mostrar os movimentos de planejamento do bairro, aparecendo Associações de Moradores, Câmara Comunitária e Associações Comerciais envolvidas em projetos de benfeitorias na região.

London is 2012 after 1908 and 1948 for the third time the venue of the Olympic Games. The importance of the metropolis for the Olympic Movement does not only derive from the date of their holding but also from their architectonic herit-age. The White City Stadium as the major venue of 1908 is a milestone of Olympic Architecture. Its design was for the first time assigned to functionality. In the need of the postwar period the 1948 tournament was a masterpiece of organizational skill in the first place. The scale for 2012 is the creation of a leg-acy that includes the architecture and its sustainability.

The 2016 Olympic and Paralympic Games, held in Rio de Janeiro, reignited public interest and discussion around Paralympic athletes attempting to qualify for, and compete at, the Olympic Games. That Paralympians have sought to compete at the Olympic Games is, however, not new. This paper looks at the largely unrecognised and often underreported history of Paralympians competing at the Olympic Games and addresses why it is that Paralympians may wish to compete at the Olympic Games. To do this we use historical examples, but also look at the contemporary cases of 3 such athletes: Jason Smyth, Alan Fonteles Cardoso and Markus Rehm. The paper also explores whether or not with advances in medical and prosthetic technologies, as well as potentially increased income and funding, we can expect to see more Paralympians attempting to crossover and compete in the Olympic Games in the future. The methodology used is one of qualitative case studies. The research question was: &quot;What can be le...

At a time when public and private agencies recognise the importance of sustainable development, the environmental impacts of mega sporting events are commanding increasing attention. However, despite event sponsors often flagging the importance of environmental as well as socioeconomic legacy components, the environmental impacts of events are difficult to assess quantitatively, being complex and often occurring over extended periods. The general assessment issue is particularly acute with regard to mega events such as the Olympic Games and FIFA World Cup. The practical issues mean that any quantitative techniques seeking to assess environmental impacts are likely to be partial in scope. This paper examines two such approaches for quantitative impact assessment of selected environmental externalities connected with visitation at sporting events. The paper considers the use of Ecological Footprint analysis and Environmental Input-Output modelling. It provides examples of the applications of these techniques to discrete sporting events in a UK region, and discusses whether these techniques are appropriate for exploring the environmental impacts of mega events.

In 2013, with the city’s 2002 urban renaissance policy seemingly having
reached its limit, Tokyo won its bid to stage the 2020 Olympics. he city plan was modified, with Olympic clusters replacing the
special zones of urban redevelopment. However, the highly selective, centrally concentrated nature of urban renaissance and Olympic infrastructure has created a two-tier city, provoking debate over what
David Harvey calls the spatial fix, i.e. the temporary spatial solutions adopted by capitalists to save their assets from a downward spiral in values. his paper will examine the assumed continuity between the 2000s (urban renaissance) and the 2010s (Olympic development)
and discuss the pertinence of the term spatial fix in Tokyo. It will formulate the idea of a trend fix to debate the uneven development associated with the Olympics.

Nations realising the political and developmental possibilities in hosting a mega sport event is a trend that has been increasing in recent decades. To take one example, Qatar is one of the most prolific nations in bidding and hosting sports events as a means of augmenting the nation’s image. Building on Joseph Nye’s conception of soft power, this paper examines how Qatar deliberately uses sport as a tool for global nation branding to promote their political objectives. We set out by explaining how nations can benefit from hosting these mega events and the underlying rationale for Qatar’s investment in them. We then focus on Athletics and explore the links between the International Association of Athletics Federation (IAAF) and Qatar in relation to the bidding process for the World Athletics Championships. We conclude by arguing why the IAAF 2019 World Athletics Championships in Doha backfired on Qatar’s soft power and nation branding strategy. The athletics championships, which were the last key test ahead of the 2022 FIFA World Cup, has created doubt as to whether nations like Qatar, with a questionable human rights record and extreme climatic challenges; heat, should be allowed to host sport mega events.