ABSTRACT

Sport and politics have been intertwined from ancient Greece to the present day. Democratic states also became involved in their country’s sporting matters during crisis points, such as to implement wartime physical training, to address education requirements, and to address perceptions that a country needed to enhance its international prestige. Countries have frequently used sport both informally and through government-supported programmes as part of diplomacy and state relations. Sport has played a large role in soft power or public diplomacy – an effort to win the hearts and minds of people living in other countries – because it can incorporate so many different types of athletic activity in order to appeal to different groups of people across the world. Local, state/provincial, and federal governments have increasingly provided the finances and other benefits for major sporting events. Anti-Olympic sentiment has been visible in host cities for decades but has become more pronounced during the candidature stage, especially since that 2011 vote.