Hosting the Olympic Games: Uncertainty, Debates and Controversy

Hosting the Olympic Games: Uncertainty, Debates and Controversy provides a broad and comprehensive analysis of past Olympic and Paralympic events, shedding critical light on the future of the Games with a specific look at the upcoming Paris 2024 Olympics. It draws attention to the debates and paradox that hosting the Games presents for the contemporary city.

Employing a range of interdisciplinary theoretical and methodological approaches, individual chapters highlight the various controversies of the Games throughout the bidding process, the event itself and its aftermath. Social Science-based chapters place strong emphasis on the vital importance of sustainable strategy for contemporary host cities. Along with environmental concerns whether atmospheric, microbiological or otherwise, many other requirements, costs and risks involving security and public expenditure among others are explored throughout the book.

Including a variety of international and comparative case studies from a range of contributing academics, this will be essential reading for students and researchers in the field of Event studies as well as various disciplines including Tourism, Heritage studies and Urban and Environmental studies.

Marie Delaplace (marie.delaplace@u-pem.fr) holds a PhD (1994) and a “habilitation à diriger les recherches” (2009) in economics on the emergence of different types of innovations (IT, biopolymers, transportation, services) in different places. Since 2011, she has been professor of planning and regional development in the Lab’Urba research unit at the “École d’urbanisme de Paris” (Paris School of Urban Planning) within Université Paris-Est Marne-la-Vallée (UPEM). Her works have focused on the wide-ranging effects of high-speed rail on local economic development for more than 15 years and on tourism and local economic development for more than 10 years. She is the co-director of the “City, Tourism, Transport and Territories” Group within the Urban Futures LabEx and represents the university president in the French association AsTRES (Association for Tourism Research and Higher Education). In 2017, she co-founded the Observatory for Research on Mega-Events (ORME) at Université Paris-Est (https://www.u-orme.fr/en/). Alone or with other researchers, she has published almost 60 articles in academic journals and 10 book chapters on these issues.

Pierre-Olaf Schut (po.schut@u-pem.fr) is a Professor of sports history in the research center “Analyse Comparée des Pouvoirs” (EA 3350) at Université Paris-Est Marne-la-Vallée, France. His main research areas are the development of sports and their relationships with tourism and regional planning, especially regarding sports facilities. He also works on the history of Olympism and the legacy of mega-events. He has co-founded ORME, the Observatory for Research on Mega-Events. He is part of the editorial board of the International Journal of the History of Sport and elected in the International Society for the History of Physical Education and Sport council. He recently published in French Espaces et lieux de sport dans l’histoire by EPURE.