ABSTRACT
This chapter focuses on the future viability of a multi-sport event such as the Olympic Games, identifying potential threats to their exalted status at the pinnacle of world sport. Since any threat also represents an opportunity, the chapter considers the capacity of Olympic organizers to respond to such challenges. It discusses the Allen Guttmann thesis, elaborated in his Games and Empires, that the Olympic Games have long been deeply Eurocentric. The chapter identifies several threats to the continuing status of the Olympic Games. It aims to weigh the significance of each threat and the capacity of Olympic organizers to respond to each challenge. The organizers of a multi-sport festival face the continuing challenge of a proliferation of new sports that stretch the boundaries of what constitutes sport and incorporate alternative visions of sport. The Olympic Games draws on an older concept of sport: the programme consists of a loosely related amalgam of sports.
