Next month: Olympics

Postponed due to the Covid-19 pandemic and now planned for this July, at the time of writing it looks as if the Tokyo Olympics will take place in 2021. What the legacy of the event will be for the city, however, is far less certain. For some places, hosting the Olympic Games has been a definite boon, prompting reconstruction of downtrodden areas and the creation of useful infrastructure. As former London mayor Ken Livingstone said in 2008: ‘I didn’t bid for the Olympics because I wanted three weeks of sport. I bid for the Olympics because it’s the only way to get billions of pounds out of the government to develop the East End, to clean the soil, put in the infrastructure and build the housing.’ Elsewhere, however, it’s a different story, with huge sums spent on stadiums, pools and rinks that never get used again – public infuriation is often the result. There is no sporting event quite like the Olympics for capturing the attention of the entire world. On top of more than six million ticket sales, a record 350,000 hours of coverage was broadcast during the 2016 summer games, when backstrokers, archers and rhythmic gymnasts competed in the shadow of Rio de Janeiro’s Cristo Redentor. Yet interest in hosting this global event has become increasingly lukewarm, with some cities very publicly withdrawing their bids.

In the next issue of Geographical, Chris Fitch asks what obstacles the Olympics need to overcome in the future and whether the model can be made to work for sportspeople, cities and their citizens.