Jean-Loup Chappelet

Olympic Environmental Concerns as a Legacy of the Winter Games

The Olympic Winter Games are partly held in mountain resorts and are thus closer to nature, a fact that has frequently led them to encounter strong opposition from environmental organizations. This paper recalls these episodes and explores how the ideas of environmental protection and sustainable development have been slowly incorporated in the Olympic rhetoric. It shows how a set of environmental principles developed through the experiences of local organizers at most Winter Games since the 1970s, and how the International Olympic Committee adopted them in the 1990s and incorporated them in the Olympic ideal. The article also explains why Olympic environmental concerns can be considered as one of the major non-material legacies that the winter games have bequeathed to the Olympic movement.

From Lake Placid to Salt Lake City: The challenging growth of the Olympic Winter Games Since 1980

The Olympic Winter Games have existed for more than three quarters of a century. The first were held at Chamonix, France in January 1924 and virtually amounted to a week-long private party of winter sports competitions, linked to the Summer Games held in Paris in July of that same year. The most recent Winter Games took place in February 2002 in Salt Lake City, Utah, United States, and received extensive media coverage, even in countries where snow and ice are unknown. In the 1980s, the Olympic Winter Games gradually grew in status, to the point of receiving almost as much attention as the summer equivalent. The last 20 years have played an essential part in this process, a period which broadly equates with Spanish politician Juan Antonio Samaranch’s period in office as President of the IOC (International Olympic Committee). Samaranch was elected on the eve of the Moscow Games in July 1980 (4: p. 189). In 1986, at the President’s instigation and—so they say—in response to a suggestion by an American television network executive, the IOC decided that future Winter Games would no longer be held during the same year as the Summer Games but 2 years earlier. As a result, the Games planned for 1996 were brought forward to 1994 (Lillehammer). The Albertville and Barcelona Games, held respectively in February and July 1992, were the last to take place in the same year. To give us a more accurate impression of the extent of the changes that have taken place in the Winter Games, it is worth noting a few indicators that summarize their organization from 1980 onwards—that is, from Lake Placid 1980, the last Winter Games held in the United States before those of Salt Lake City 2002. It is surprising, incidentally, to learn that an event that now enjoys such a high media profile is the subject of so few reliable and meaningful statistics just a few years after its conclusion. The first purpose of this paper, therefore, is to collect and validate some of these indicators, often sparse and difficult to trace after the event. The second purpose is to structure and compare them. It will then be easier to discern certain trends, although in very general terms, which may be particularly useful to future organizers of the Winter Games. The indicators in question are as follows, and form the basis for a dozen tables distributed over three categories: European Journal of Sport Science, vol. 2, issue 3 ©2002 by Human Kinetics Publishers and the European College of Sport Science

Managing the size of the Olympic Games

The last two decades have seen dramatic increases in the size and scope of the Summer Olympic Games. In many ways, London 2012 reached even higher summits than the Beijing Games in 2008. This growth is a major challenge for the Olympics and its future organizers, as it is making the Games increasingly difficult to stage and has greatly reduced the number of cities capable of hosting them. This study shows how various participation and organization indicators have expanded over six Olympiads, from Barcelona 1992 to London 2012, and examines the reasons for this growth. It suggests ways of reducing the size of the Summer Olympic Games in order to make them more manageable and to encourage candidatures from smaller cities and countries.

A rationalist perspective on the autonomy of international sport governing bodies: towards a pragmatic autonomy in the steering of sports.

International sport governing bodies (ISGBs) are built on the foundations of freedom of association and traditionally enjoy a large degree of autonomy in their decision-making. Their autonomy is increasingly confined, however, and their hierarchical self-governance is giving way to a more networked governance, in which different stakeholders exert power in different ways and in different contexts in a complex web of interrelationships. Taking a rationalist perspective on the autonomy of ISGBs, this article demonstrates that ISGBs are deploying strategies to safeguard their waning governing monopoly over international sport. Opting for an inductive approach, the authors present four possible conceptualizations of autonomy as applied to ISGBs, namely political autonomy, legal autonomy, financial autonomy and pyramidal autonomy. For each dimension, they describe the different strategies ISGBs wield in order to safeguard different dimensions of their autonomy. This article uses governance theories to hypothesize that the autonomy of ISGBs can be understood as ‘pragmatic autonomy’ since ISGBs only cede certain aspects of their autonomy under particular circumstances and when being subject to specific threats. Acting in a rationalist manner, they are able to keep control over governance developments in sport by using indirect and more subtle forms of governance.

Towards better Olympic accountability

Ten years after the corruption scandal that shook the International Olympic Committee (IOC) in 1999, this article presents the current situation regarding accountability for this non-governmental organization based in Switzerland. The IOC is responsible for ensuring that the Olympic Games are held regularly, and since its foundation has endeavoured to promote sport without discrimination in service of sustainable human development and a better world. Olympic accountability is examined by means of four facets within a theoretical framework. The analysis of each of them shows that although considerable progress has been made by the IOC since 1999, improvements regarding accountability remain both possible and desirable. A mechanism for making improvements is proposed in the Conclusion.

The Olympic fight against match-fixing.

Match-fixing has been designated as a new scourge of sport at the beginning of the twenty-first century, and sports organizations as well as other stakeholders have started to fight against it as they did against doping a few decades ago. This article summarizes, on the basis of document analysis, the approach taken by the Olympic organizations – first among them the International Olympic Committee (IOC) – to fight match-fixing as defined in a recent treaty by the Council of Europe. It first gives a few recent examples of match-fixing at the Olympic Games. A second section examines the step-by-step approach of the IOC to take leadership in this fight during the Rogge and at the start of the Bach IOC presidencies. The conclusion summarizes the main issues to be solved with regard to the many countries, sports and betting operators which must be considered to start this fight.

Interactive tools for e-democracy: examples from switzerland

Democracy is based on freedom of voting but also on meaningful discussions about matters that are put to the vote or about people who wish to be elected. E-democracy cannot therefore be reduced to e-voting. It should also include Internet-based services that facilitate online interaction between voters, candidates and supporters of various opinions. This paper presents a series of interactive tools that can be used to support such a virtual dialogue. A matrix is proposed to categorize these tools. Examples of such tools used in Switzerland are given. The most sophisticated tools and websites recently developed for Swiss elections or referendums are described in some detail. Possible future research on the impact of these tools is outlined.

The Emerging Concept of Sport-Event-Hosting Strategy: Definition and Comparison

ABSTRACT As bidding for the rights to host sport events has become increasingly competitive, more and more countries, regions and cities have been employing public strategies and policies for promoting attractiveness of their locations to host sport events, which can be termed as ‘sport-event-hosting strategy’ (SEHS). However, from an academic standpoint, minimal effort has been made to conceptualise the notion of SEHS. This paper, thus, attempts to systematically examine such strategy by integrating the main findings of prior theoretical and empirical research. To this end, the paper begins by defining the concept of SEHS and proceeds to examine its constituent elements such as strategic goals, targets, stakeholders, tools, and management process. National variations of SEHS, including the emergence of public hosting policies, are also explored. The conclusion suggests future research directions for SEHS.

From market squares to homepages: a survey of Swiss MPs’ interactivity

As is the case in many democratic countries, MPs in Switzerland are close to their constituencies and have adapted to the various new means of mass communication as these emerged over the last century: from newspapers to the Internet, via radio and television. Today, a large majority of Swiss MPs have both an e-mail address and a homepage. This paper explores the use of the Internet by the Swiss MPs for their relationship with citizens almost two years prior to the next national elections for the Federal Parliament (2007). It is based on a quantitative and qualitative survey of all the personal homepages of the members of the lower and upper houses conducted in 2005. Particular attention is paid to interactive means of communication (such as e-mail, forums, blogs, online polls, chats, etc.) that are made available in order to foster online dialogue between politicians and citizens. Based on this data, on a few European comparisons, and on some focused observations of particular sites, the paper identifies the new challenges and opportunities that Swiss MPs must face to better interact with their electorate.

Switzerland : [Swiss Sport Policies : An overview]

Swiss public policies for sport have expanded slowly but surely since 1874 when gymnastics was included in the Federal Military Organization Act: one of the earliest cases of including ’sport’ in a piece of national legislation. Over the twentieth century, in parallel with the marked evolution in the notion of ‘sport’, the Swiss Confederation, its Cantons and its municipalities progressively introduced public policies to develop sport as a tool for physical education, health, social integration and economic development. This article shows how sport has moved – particularly over the last thirty years – from a purely private endeavour to a socio-political phenomenon that involves all levels of government in Switzerland to an ever-increasing extent. It concludes by presenting emerging policy trends and by charting some possible research directions for the future. After briefly reviewing the genesis of public sport development policies in Switzerland, the present article outlines the current legal framework for State intervention in sport. It then describes the substantial transformation in the configuration of the main actors involved in Swiss sport (public bodies, associations and commercial enterprises) that took place in the 1980s and 1990s. This is followed by an examination of the current federal funding for sport and the situation produced by the ‘Federal Council’s Concept for a sport policy in Switzerland’, which was adopted in 2000 by the Swiss Government (OFSPO 2000). The article concludes with a discussion of current issues and recent trends in Swiss sport policies.