ABSTRACT
An understanding of the London 2012 Olympic and Paralympic Games would be incomplete without reference to their scale and impact. The Games have truly lived up to the definition of mega-events as “large-scale cultural (including commercial and sporting) events, which have a dramatic character, mass popular appeal and international significance” (Roche, 2000, p. 1). For 17 days London 2012 became ‘the beating heart of the world’, to use the words of the International Olympic Committee (IOC) President Jacques Rogge, disrupted people’s routines, generated a great deal of public enthusiasm and involvement, supplied incredible drama around athletes’ and organisers’ performances and was visited by 120 national leaders. The significance of the Games went well beyond sport, and despite the ambitions of the organisers to make London everyone’s Games, more than 40 different groups protested them, including some Paralympic athletes. The Games have already made a range of immediate economic, cultural and sporting impacts, but it will take years to evaluate and understand more fully both their positive and negative legacy for British society and the Olympic Movement.
