Volume 6, Number 1, Spring 2025
Table of Contents:
Articles
Julie Brice, “The Future of the Olympics in the Face of Climate Change: Interrogating the Complex Relationship between the Games, the Environment, and Sustainability”
DOI: 10.5406/26396025.6.1.01
Julie Brice
California State University, Fullerton
Amanda Shuman and Philippe Vonnard, “Taking Nature into Account? The International Olympic Committee Confronts Environmental Issues (1960s-1990s)”
DOI: 10.5406/26396025.6.1.02
Amanda Shuman
University of Freiburg
Philippe Vonnard
University of Freiburg
Abstract: The International Olympic Committee (IOC) was present at the Earth Summit in Rio de Janeiro in 1992 and soon thereafter began drafting an official environmental policy. Yet, given that other international organizations (e.g., the United Nations, UNESCO) had adopted policies two decades earlier, what took the IOC so long? This article employs IOC archival materials to elucidate the rise from the early 1970s through the early 1990s of different actors and parties calling on the IOC to address environmental issues in the context of holding the Olympics. It broadly outlines and synthesizes the IOC’s response (or lack thereof) to these actors. The IOC’s approach to these actors was primarily reactive rather than proactive until the late 1980s when, following an increase in well-supported movements against hosting the Olympics, and with the crucial help of a group in Lillehammer, it finally decided to act.
Keywords: Olympic history, environment, International Olympic Committee, Olympic Games, failed bids
Robin Kietlinski, “Save the Trees: A Century of Olympic Infrastructure and Japan’s Increasingly Fragile Environment”
DOI: 10.5406/26396025.6.1.03
Robin Kietlinski
City University of New York – LaGuardia Community College
Abstract: Japan has played a significant and pioneering role in the Olympic Movement for well over a century. Not only was it the first nation outside of Europe and North America to have a member on the International Olympic Committee, to send athletes to the Games, and to host both Summer and Winter Olympics, but it also played an important role in the so-called “greening” of the Olympic Games. From its planning to host the ultimately-cancelled 1940 Olympics to its hosting of the ultimately-postponed 2020 Olympics, Tokyo has been at the center of Japan’s complex and massive Olympic infrastructure projects. The economic and environmental costs of these projects have drawn increasing scrutiny over the past century, and this scrutiny has helped shape present-day attitudes towards large-scale sports development projects. This article looks at Olympic-related projects in Japan, with a focus on Tokyo, over the past century and connects these projects to contemporary debates over sports development projects in the world’s largest city – a city with precious little green space that is acutely feeling the effects of climate change. I argue that debates and discourse surrounding Tokyo 2020 highlighted a decline in the Japanese public’s eagerness over massive sports development projects, and the first-ever Olympic postponement offered a unique and prolonged opportunity to reflect on the many costs of hosting the event. While the focus of this paper is Japan, the questions it raises about the increasingly tense relationship between the Olympics and the natural environment are universal.
Keywords: Olympics, Tokyo, climate change, protest, greenwashing
DOI: 10.5406/26396025.6.1.04
Jake Dean, “Fake Snow, Faking Sustainability: Host Selection and the Winter Olympics’ Growing Reliance on Artificial Snow Ahead of Milan-Cortina d’Ampezzo 2026”
Jake Dean
University of California, Santa Barbara
Abstract: Fake snow is increasingly a part of high-level international snowboarding and skiing competitions including at events hosted by the International Ski and Snowboard Federation (FIS) and the Olympics. This reliance has grown especially rapidly at the Winter Olympics with the selection of unsuitable host sites for recent editions and the realities of a changing climate, higher winter temperatures, and unsuitable precipitation levels. While the use of artificial snow allows competition when snow conditions are poor in these locations, this also results in problematic environmental outcomes. Given the International Olympic Committee’s (IOC) alleged commitment to sustainability over the past few decades and recent calls for increased environmentalism at FIS events, it is important to interrogate the increase of artificial snow across recent iterations of the Games to demonstrate the growing environmental problems of hosting snowboarding and skiing competitions in unsuitable locales—and look forward to the 2026 Winter Games that are continuing this trend. Specifically, this article argues that the inability of the IOC to effectively amend its own host city selection process and recruit suitable hosts for future editions of the Winter Olympics has resulted in an increasing reliance on artificial snow. These failures exemplify the ongoing concerns with the IOC’s ability to address sustainability concerns amidst the Olympic Movement’s continued greenwashing.
Keywords: Winter Olympics, sustainability, artificial snow, snow sports, greenwashing
Yannick Rinker and Holgar Preuss, “Ecological Cost-Benefit Analysis of Mega Sport Events – A Conceptual Framework for Sustainable Sports Management”
DOI: 10.5406/26396025.6.1.05
Yannick Rinker
Johannes Gutenberg University Mainz
Holger Preuss
Johannes Gutenberg University Mainz
Antonia Hannawacker
Johannes Gutenberg- University Mainz
Abstract: The ongoing destruction of the environment requires sustainable action, especially in the context of mega sport events like the Olympic Games. Therefore, it is essential to not only focus on economic and social benefits but also on reducing ecological impact and promoting sustainable development of the host city’s ecology. This article proposes a conceptual framework for measuring the environmental footprint of sporting events through an Environmental Cost-Benefit Analysis (ECBA). A novel methodological approach is proposed that integrates ecological accounting principles with event management practices, allowing the quantification and comparison of environmental costs and benefits. This facilitates in-formed decision-making for more sustainable event planning and execution. The research is expected to make a significant contribution to closing the research gap on cost-benefit management and environmental sustainability of sporting events. It promotes a shift towards environmentally conscious event management and underscores the urgent need to incorporate environmental considerations into sport event planning.
Keywords: cost-benefit-analysis, mega-events, sustainability, environmental impact, Olympic Games
Jeffrey A. Graham, Sylvia Trendafilova, and Anton Schulz, “Environmental Sustainability and the Olympics: Crafting the Future”
DOI: 10.5406/26396025.6.1.06
Jeffrey A. Graham
University of Tennessee
Sylvia Trendafilova
University of Tennessee
Anton Schulz
University of Tennessee
Abstract: This study provides a review of the literature on research focused on environmental sustainability (ES) and the Olympic Games. This systematic literature review is needed to guide future studies and direct sport scholars’ attention toward a deeper and more comprehensive understanding of ES within the Olympics. A scoping review method was utilized to identify journal articles, examine and screen each article, and report the overall status of research connected with ES and the Olympics. After evaluation, sixty-one articles were included in the scoping review. The results suggests ES remains an important topic of study. For over thirty years scholars have examined ES from many different and critical perspectives. However, gaps remain in the literature, especially in the areas of theoretical development and methodological approaches. As scholarship connecting ES and the Olympics continues, this review provides insights into the ways scholars from a broad range of academic disciplines can approach the topic and continue to contribute to knowledge creation.
Keywords: Environmental Sustainability, Green Games, Olympics
Book Review Essay
Matthew J. Burbank, “What We Can Learn from an Olympics that Never Happened. A Review Essay of Adam Berg’s, The Olympics That Never Happened: Denver ’76 and the Politics of Growth”
DOI: 10.5406/26396025.6.1.07
Matthew J. Burbank
University of Utah