A Compromised Legacy? Investigating the embodiment of Olympism values within the Olympic bidding process

Sammanfattning: The international and commercialised recognition of the Olympic Games can bring upon prestigious benefits to a country's Olympic Games legacy. Due to this, candidate cities have capitalised on this opportunity to leverage their bids to successfully secure hosting rights. Consequently, this has commodified the bidding process, which has intensified the competition and the declining number of bids over recent years. Thus, jeopardising the legitimacy of the Olympic Games bids to its true values of Olympism. Hence, utilising a semi-systematic literature review, this thesis aims to investigate the extent and in what ways the Olympic Games bids have embodied the values of Olympism. Specifically exploring within three case-study examples; the Beijing 2008; the London 2012; and the Rio De Janeiro 2016 Summer Olympic Games. Adopting a thematic analysis and theoretical framework, findings have noted four overarching themes that influence the leveraging of bids; Economical, Political, Globalisation and the Public (Social). Further, and to a vague extent, the selected Olympic Games bids embodied the values of Olympism as secondary and appear to be a by-product of a prominent agenda that reflects the ebb and flow of politics and economics of the respective host-city. Interestingly, by examining the Olympism philosophy and legacy this may not be an issue due to its abstract construction and lack of precision, which has enabled great flexibility. As a resolution, this thesis calls for the values to be measurable and the implementation of evaluative committees that span beyond the Olympic Games to ensure Olympism values and its legacy is embodied successfully.