Sport Participation and Olympic Legacies A Comparative Study

This book examines claims that the Olympic Games are a vehicle to inspire and increase mass sport participation. It focuses on the mass sport participation legacy of the most recent hosts of the summer Olympics, including Atlanta, Sydney, Athens, Beijing, London, Rio, and Tokyo. It is organised by host city/country and applies an analytical framework to each, addressing the socio-political context that shapes sport policy, the key changes in sport policy, the structure and governance of community sport, the Olympic and Paralympic legacy, and the changes in mass sport participation before, during, and after the Games. The book is important reading for students, researchers, and policymakers working in sport governance, sport development or management, and the sport policy sector.

List of contributors Chapter 1 – IntroductionSpencer Harris and Mathew Dowling Chapter 2 – Atlanta 1996: celebration of a centuryPeter Smolianov, Matthew T. Bowers, and Kathy Babiak Chapter 3 – Sydney 2000: the spirit of AustraliaPopi Sotiriadou and Millicent Kennelly Chapter 4 – Athens 2004: welcome homePopi Sotiriadou, Eleni Theodoraki, Dimitris Gargalianos, and George Ganatsios Chapter 5 – Beijing 2008: one world, one dreamXiaoyan Xing and Shushu Chen Chapter 6 – London 2012: inspire a generationSpencer Harris and Mathew Dowling Chapter 7 – Rio 2016:a new worldClaudio M. Rocha and Leandro C. Mazzei Chapter 8 – Tokyo 2020(+1): united by emotionFumihiro Kaneko Chapter 9 – ConclusionSpencer Harris and Mathew Dowling Index

Spencer Harris is Associate Professor of Sport Management at the University of Colorado, Colorado Springs, USA. Mathew Dowling is Senior Lecturer in the Cambridge Centre for Sport & Exercise Sciences, at Anglia Ruskin University, UK.