Abstract
Every potential Olympic Games organiser assumers that the games they organise will be special, that they will help to set new, high standards both in the organisation of sports events themselves, as well as in the planning and carrying out of projects accompanying the games. Since the document entitled Agenda 21 was approved by the UN at the Earth Summit in 1992, environmental protection has become the mainstay of the discussion among the Olympic family, and the problem of sustainable planning has become one of the main features of published reports. The conclusion of the conference coincided with the Lillehammer Winter Olympics of 1994, which were praised as the first green games to be held, under the motto “White Green Games”. Four years prior, in Nagano, its organisers advertised the games with the slogan “Coexistence with nature”. London 2012, with its motto “Inspire a Generation”, highlighted the educational aspect of the events and the words “environment” and “sustainability” were on the lips of everyone everywhere in the context of every activity the organisers were undertaking. During Rio 2016, the motto was “Green Games for Blue Planet”. The goal of the article is to investigate whether these mottoes have been actually reflected in the measures taken by authorities and encompassing the period between proclaiming them as Games organisers, during the sports event itself, and during the post-Games period. The author focused on the two most recent Games (Rio 2016 and PyeongChang 2018) in order to verify whether the ambitious assumptions that filled all manners of reports have been made a reality. The diagnosis presented in the article indicates that the pursuit of satisfying the ambitions of authorities and organisers is often at odds with the precepts and concept of sustainable development. The results of the study are an essential starting point for the discussion on developing a new formula—that of the European Games, whose third edition is to be organised in Krakow in 2023, and whose respective subject matter is identical to the problems that an Olympic Games organiser must face in terms of infrastructure planning.
Highlights
Just before the 2018 United Nations Climate Change Conference held in Katowice, Marie Sallois said that “we ask the cities what the Olympic Games can do for them instead of asking what they can do for the Olympic Games” [7]
Despite the subject of sustainable development and ecology being discussed by a large community of specialists and often being the subject of academic studies, it is still poorly understood by decision-makers and the organisers of large events
Sustainable legacy: Some months prior to the beginning of the Games, the IOC delegation inspecting the progress of the work noted the high maintenance costs of the buildings and that the lack of specific declarations as to their future could lead to the appearance of more “white elephants”, which are expensive stadiums without a perspective of future use throughout the post-Olympic period [18]
Summary
Modern Olympic Games have become a manifestation of the currently understood concept of the Olympics and have, since their reincarnation in 1896, evolved to become global events of immense cultural (sports), political and economic significance ( for some). Directed largely by post-war global economic development and the associated ideology of consumerism, the Games have been transformed from events accompanying world’s fairs at the start of the twentieth century, to modest and small-scale sports events akin to the ones in London in 1948, to a global media festival watched by billions of viewers [6] This transformation has been necessary, if only for image-related reasons, for serious politics and the associated big business to remain able to act under the thin and delicate veneer of the mission that is associated with the organisation of Games under the sign of the International Olympic Committee. Just before the 2018 United Nations Climate Change Conference held in Katowice, Marie Sallois (the IOC’s director of corporate development, brand and sustainability) said that “we ask the cities what the Olympic Games can do for them instead of asking what they can do for the Olympic Games” [7]
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