The Long-Standing Issue of Mobility at the Olympics: From Host Cities to Host Regions in the Ongoing Case Study of Milan–Cortina 2026

Due to public opposition against the unsustainability of hosting the Olympic Games, the International Olympic Committee adopted Olympic Agenda 2020 to adjust the event requirements to address modern society’s sustainability concerns. Since its implementation, the Agenda has driven important changes regarding the planning and organization of the Olympics, including the possibility of regions being hosts. This allows the sprawl of Olympic venues over larger territories, theoretically facilitating the alignment of event requirements with the needs of the intensively growing contemporary urban areas. However, the larger the host territory, the more complex becomes its mobility planning, as transport requirements for participants still have to be fulfilled, and the host populations still expect to inherit benefits from any investments made. The objective of this paper is to identify and discuss new challenges that such modifications bring for mega-event mobility planning. First, based on the academic literature of case studies of previous Olympic cities, a theoretical framework to systematize the mobility problem at the Olympic Games is proposed for further validation, identifying the dimensions of the related knowledge frames. Second, the mobility planning for the case study of the first ever Olympic region—the Milan–Cortina 2026 Winter Games—is described. Using this case study, the proposed framework is then extrapolated for cases of Olympic regions in order to identify any shifts in the paradigm of mobility planning when increasing the spatial scale of Olympic hosts. Conclusions indicate that, if properly addressed, unsustainability might be mitigated in Olympic regions, but mega-event planners will have to consider new issues affecting host communities and event stakeholders.

Dealing with the promise of metabarcoding in mega-event biomonitoring: EXPO2015 unedited data

As human activities on our planet persist, causing widespread and irreversible environmental degradation, the need to biomonitor ecosystems has never been more pressing. These circumstances have required a renewal in monitoring techniques, encouraged by necessity to develop more rapid and accurate tools which will support timely observations of ecosystem structure and function. The World Exposition (from now 'EXPO2015') hosted in Milan from May to October 2015 was a global event that could be categorized as a mega-event, which can be defined as an acute environmental stressor, possibly generating biodiversity alteration and disturbance. During the six months of EXPO2015, exhibitors from more than 135 countries and 22 million visitors insisted on a 1.1 million square meters area. Faced with such a massive event, we explore the potential of DNA metabarcoding using three molecular markers to improve the understanding of anthropogenic impacts in the area, both considering air and water monitoring. Furthermore, we explore the effectiveness of the taxonomy assignment phase considering different taxonomic levels of analysis and the use of data mining approaches to predict sample origin. Unless the degree of taxa identification still remains open, our results showed that DNA metabarcoding is a powerful genomic-based tool to monitor biodiversity at the microscale, allowing us to capture exact fingerprints of specific event sites and to explore in a comprehensive manner the eukaryotic community alteration. With this work, we aim to disentangle and overcome the crucial issues related to the generalization of DNA metabarcoding in order to support future applications.

Contesting Sustainability of Mega-Events in Chinese Metropolises: A Narrative and Practise Review

Since the Rio Summit, sustainability has been enshrined in the official claims of mega-events, and scholars' sustainability concerns over mega-events persist. This research is one of the few contextualising the debates in China where mega-events have become prevalent and contributed to metropolitan boosterism since the 1990s. It argues that the ill-defined, ambiguous meaning of sustainability leaves room for host cities to discursively strike a balance between environment protection, social equity and economic growth, but unavoidably leads to paradoxes of sustainability in actual practises. The argument is supported by a longitudinal study on 12 major mega-events held or to be held in Chinese metropolises. Narratively, Chinese government's articulation of sustainability declared by international organisations of top mega-events has evolved technocratic and inclusive. Practically, amongst the three variants of sustainability, economic sustainability, and environmental sustainability appear to work better than social sustainability. Findings of this research call for clarified narratives and concrete measures to guide mega-event practises.

Gender identity and Olympic games: The iridescence in Tokyo 2020

The Tokyo 2020 Olympic Games has brought great strides in terms of equality and inclusion. At least 185 publicly out LGBTIQ+ athletes have attended this global mega-event, which is more than triple the number from the 2016 Rio Olympics. This study investigates the sports participation of the LGBTIQ+ group based on qualitative method of literature review and logical analysis. It first examines the literature about the LGBTIQ+ group's sports participation and then sheds light on the evolution of gender characteristics of Olympics and sports from a historical research perspective. Finally, taking Tokyo 2020 Olympic Games as an example, this work discusses the state quo and future of the LGBTIQ+ group's Olympic participation. The results indicate that sex discrimination in sports has a long history. As the most important global sporting event, the Olympic Games have gone through different stages from the "male-exclusivity" to the gender binary system. However, true gender equality has not yet been realized. In addition, it points out that the Tokyo Olympics is of positive significance for promoting inclusiveness and equality. The ever-developing inclusiveness and diversity will probably break the gender competition mechanism of the Olympic Games. Sports institutions need to deal well with issues of gender equality and fair competition

Nexus between FDI, Infrastructure Investment, Tourism Revenues, and Economic Growth: Mega Event Evidence

The object of this study is to examine the response of economic growth in Germany to 2006 FIFA World Cup hosting (represented by the heavily influenced variables of this huge event: Growth of Infrastructure Spending, Tourism Revenues, and Foreign Direct investment) during the period (2000 – 2017). The study employed Dynamic Ordinary Least Square (DOLS) approach to estimate the long-run equilibrium relationships amongst the variables. The results indicate that there is a co-integrating long-run relationship among the studied variables and provide empirical evidence showing that an increase in the growth of infrastructure spending (GINFR) 1 unit leads to an increase in the growth of GDP (GGDP) by 0.374 unit, an increase in the tourism revenues (TR) 1 unit leads to increase in the growth of GDP (GGDP) by 0.155 unit, and an increase in foreign direct investment (FDI) 1 unit leads to an increase in the growth of GDP (GGDP) by 0.055 unit. What distinguishes this paper is that it is one of the rare studies that went beyond the short effect of mega-events on the host country and investigated the long-term economic impact of the most important macro variables associated with mega-events on economic growth. Doi: 10.28991/esj-2021-01323 Full Text: PDF

Rio 2016 Olympic Games: Brand and the reciprocal effects of touristic destinations

This study analyzes the effect of Brazil's national tourism brand on the image of Rio de Janeiro as the host city of the 2016 Olympic Games, and the reciprocal effect of Rio de Janeiro on Brazil, considering both as tourist destinations. A quantitative study was employed using structured questionnaires, with a sample of foreign respondents ( n = 340) and a simultaneous equation method. A positive reciprocal effect was found. In general, the perception of a country as a tourist destination influences destinations within that country. However, the Brazil destination brand image did not influence Rio. This situation was proved to be an exception to the rule, the sports mega-event context probably contributing to the result.