ABSTRACT
The concept of legacy has been used with increasing frequency to describe the social and long-term impact of sport events and the facilities that host the events. The popularity of the word legacy is largely due to its association with the Olympic discourse, referring to the long-lasting impacts of the Olympic Movement and Olympic Games. Among the many so-called mega-sporting events, the modern Olympic Games easily stands out by its scale and influence, and is widely recognised as the largest multi-sport event of global significance. However, with the growing scale and cost, it has become increasingly controversial as to whether it is worthwhile for a city to host the Olympics. Despite a wide variety of benefits that have been suggested for Olympic host cities, competition to stage the Olympics in recent years is diminishing; 11 cities bid for the 2004 Summer Olympics whilst there were only five bidding cities for the 2020 Summer Olympics (Chappelet, 2013), and only four for the 2024 Games. The situation for the Winter Olympics is even worse, especially after Russia spent a record high of US$50 billion hosting the Sochi Games in 2014. With local communities and/or governments vetoing the decision to enter into a bid, only two willing candidates were left in the final stage in 2015 to compete for the 2022 Winter Games (Almaty, Kazakhstan and Beijing, China). Both IOC and Olympic host cities have been under growing pressure to justify the staging of the Olympics and the huge cost incurred subsidised by public spending. The concept of ‘legacy’, together with the concept of ‘sustainable sport development’, has become an essential part of the IOC and the Organizing Committee of the Olympic Games (OCOG) vocabulary (Girginov & Hills, 2008), and by extension to sport facilities and major events across the spectrum of recreation, leisure, and entertainment.
