• 1 Pete Fussey, Joan Coaffee, Dick Hobbs, Securing and Sustaining the Olympic City: Reconfiguring Lond (...)
• 2 Michael B. Duignan, Ilaria Pappalepore, Sally Everett, “The ‘Summer of Discontent’: Exclusion and C (...)
• 3 Dikaia Chatziefstathiou, The Changing Nature of the Ideology of Olympism in the Modern Olympic Era,(...)

1In the modern Olympics, the most elite of sporting events, much more than sportsmanship is at stake. The Olympics today are associated with efforts to redesign cities, rebrand nation-states, and to “accumulate wealth, … validate regimes and legitimate systems.”1 The Games also promise to connect people within cities and create international coalitions and relationships, although divisions are often exasperated.2 An inherently 19^th century-originating organization, the IOC (International Olympic Committee) has become part of the establishment. Yet they find it difficult to adapt to the challenges of the 21^st century, and it is questionable whether the Olympics, which “have been transformed into a multibillion-dollar global business would continue to constitute an appropriate vehicle for the transmission of the ideals of Olympism.”3 However, the Olympics seem to be here to stay. Despite efforts such as NoOlympics LA and other anti-Olympics social groups which have attempted to make cross-national coalitions, those who advocate for the abolition of the Games have not yet formed a strong counter-hegemonic presence that would compete with the Games’ popularity worldwide. At the same time, it might be safe to claim that as the IOC fulfills its universalizing mission by installing Olympics in all corners of the world, the number of skeptics is also increasing.

• 5 Simon Romero, “Slum Dwellers Are Defying Brazil’s Grand Design for Olympics”, The New York Times, 5 (...)
• 6 Juliet Macur, “If 2024 Olympic Bid Is a Hot Potato, Boston Has No Appetite”, The New York Times, 2  (...)
• 7 See Adam Chandler, “What If Democracies Refuse to Pay for the Olympics Again?”, The Atlantic, 1^st O (...)
• 8 Eva Kassens-Noor, John Lauermann, “Mechanisms of policy failure: Boston’s 2024 Olympic bid”, Urban (...)
• 9 See Piero Corcillo, Paul Watt, “Social mixing or mixophobia in regenerating East London? ‘Affordabl (...)
• 10 Anna-Sophie Hippke, Jörg Krieger, “Public Opposition against Olympic Games: Current Challenges and (...)

4The Olympics today are at a juncture. Even before hosting the 2016 Games, citizens of Rio defied the “grant design for the Olympics”,5 Boston declared that it had “no appetite” for the 2024 bid,6 and cities such as Oslo, Stockholm, Krakow and Lviv, “refuse[d] to pay” for hosting a future Olympics.7 When asked if they support the hosting of the Games by their city, citizens increasingly declare their refusal, as in Boston’s failed 2024 bid8 and in Calgary’s referendum for the city’s 2026 Olympic bid. It is now well known that the Olympics are a liability. Host locations such as Quebec and Greece ended up with enormous debts after their Games’ budgets overruns, residents were evicted from their homes (see East London, Seoul, and Barcelona), the weak ended up weaker and the wealthy, wealthier in most host cities. There is no doubt that the Olympics favor elites, and hosting renders many important civic issues such as public health, the local economy, the environment, housing stability, and education in jeopardy. The Olympics also leave legacies in their host cities that affect citizens’ everyday lives. With new infrastructure land prices shift, and areas close to the Olympic parks become gentrified while others become neglected.9 The processes that accompany these changes are often obscure, with decisions made by just a few actors and opposing voices ignored. To make things more difficult, opposition to the Games often gains wider citizen support later in the process, when most important decisions have been made and construction work begun. A core question is whether the current Olympic format is still feasible in Western democracies. Can the Olympics be organized “under the umbrella of freedom, transparency, modesty and tolerance”?10

• 11 Jilly Traganou, Designing the Olympics: Representation, Participation, Contestation, New York, Rout (...)
• 12 See Carine Botelho Previatti, “Rio 2016 Olympic Games: The Process of Eviction and Resistance of Vi (...)
• 13 See Jules Boykoff, “The Anti-Olympics”, New Left Review, 67, 2011, p. 41-59; Ilaria Federico, “Pari (...)
• 14 See Jilly Traganou, Designing the Olympics…, op. cit.; William Andrews, “Tokyo 2020’s…”, art. cit.
• 15 See Erez Golani Solomon, Christian Dimmer, “Bubble Protocol”, Review of Japanese Culture and Societ (...)
• 16 See Jules Boykoff, Celebration Capitalism and the Olympic Games, New York, Routledge, 2014; Hillary (...)
• 17 Jilly Traganou, Designing the Olympics…, op. cit.

5The uneven development produced by the Olympics has led to various forms of protest by political, quasi-political or civil society actors. Expressing their concern and calling for change using various forms of collective action, these protests employ humor, rage or even violence.11 The causes are multifaceted, but often related to the unjust and unilateral operations of the creation of the Olympic City, many of which remain as negative legacies in the host cities, after the event and normalize what was advocated initially as an extraordinary measure. Reasons for dissent include: First, the displacement and eviction of especially vulnerable populations, tenants with no ownership or tenure rights, people in poverty, aged citizens etc.;12 second, social engineering efforts including the removal of “undesirables” (sex workers, drug addicts, street vendors, or homeless people) from public spaces;13 third, support to consumption-oriented development and partnerships that hand public assets to private corporations allowing for private profiteering;14 fourth, the militarization of public space to secure the Olympics, introducing excessive surveillance in the host city during and after the Games that infringes upon civic and privacy rights;15 fifth, the management of the Games by a local Olympic committee, a non-transparent, non-elected entity with no public accountability, operating under a state of exception framework and being dismantled after the Games;16 sixth, the absence of accountable monitoring mechanisms or organizations, from the preparation to the afterlife of the Olympics.17

• 18 Izumi Kuroischi, Jilly Traganou, “Tokyo 2020 Olympic Games: Design, Culture, and Urbanity in an Era (...)
• 19 William Andrews, “Tokyo 2020’s…”, art. cit.
• 20 Erez Golani Solomon, Christian Dimmer, “Bubble Protocol”, art. cit.
• 21 Kashima Takashi, “Design History of the Tokyo 2020 Olympic Games: Emblem Selection and Participator (...)
• 22 See Erez Golani Solomon, Christian Dimmer, “Bubble Protocol”, art. cit.; “Survey: 83% against Holdi (...)
• 23 William Andrews, “Tokyo 2020’s…”, art. cit.

6The recent Tokyo 2020 Games were plagued by all the above problems and “revealed a vast dissonance between today’s societies and the Olympic institution.”18 Concerns with the Tokyo Games were present from early on. Since their 2013 bid, the Tokyo 2020 Olympics garnered wariness and lukewarm enthusiasm, which organizers worked hard to manufacture, as they were affected by successive controversies and disasters: from the effects of the earlier triple disaster of 2011 (the Great East Japan Earthquake, tsunami, and Fukushima Daiichi nuclear power plant accident) to the COVID-19 pandemic. Early critics saw the Olympic bid – made only two years after the triple disaster –, as an inappropriate course of action in Japan’s post-disaster era and demanded a different distribution of resources giving priority to the Tohoku region. While Tokyo Olympics was promised to be a “compact Olympics,” aiming at soft changes and capitalizing on existing facilities from 1964 and later, the organizers did not resist the developmental impulse inherent to all postwar Olympics. The Tokyo Bay Zone was the official target of development, but the already established Heritage Zone, and Shibuya area in particular, also attracted an overwhelming number of urban regeneration projects including public-private partnerships, beginning with the decision to demolish the old Olympic stadium and build a new one.19 In this process, residents of the Kasumigaoka Apartments were evicted, the Olympic park was cleared of homeless populations, new surveillance technologies based on robots and drones were produced, and new methods of control were introduced vis a vis the COVID-19 pandemic.20 As Olympic plans were announced, advocates and citizen groups such as residents and homeless populations displaced due to Olympic construction work protested and coalesced into wider allyships. While these protests were not as large compared to opposing movements in other Olympic cities and did not acquire wide visibility in the domestic media, they figured prominently internationally and were joined by members of the broader movement of Olympic opposition, who see the Olympics as a capitalist enterprise that favors those already in power.21 Finally, the COVID-19 pandemic, which broke out only months before the scheduled beginning of the Games, cast an even darker shadow over the Tokyo Olympics. When the IOC unilaterally decided that they would be held a year after their scheduled date, rather than being completely canceled as the majority of Japan’s citizens (83 %), as well as the the Tokyo Medical Practitioners’ Association and the head of a Japanese doctors’ union wished,22 a new wave of disagreements erupted over their legitimacy and ethical concerns. These concerned particularly the incapacity of Japan’s government to make decisions about the hosting of the event in their territory in a manner that would represent the citizens’ will as a sovereign, democratic nation-state and how proposed projects and “the incursion by the Tokyo 2020 behemoth into a modestly sized site[s]” are an attack on Tokyo’s residents “right to the city.”23 Global protests of solidarity continued alongside the Games. Despite these protests, and citizens’ disapproval, the Games persisted. Although the facilities for the Games were constructed before the initial start of the 2020 Games, there was a second wave of development to build a “bubble”, which although was said to be a protection against COVID-19, acted as a tool for social control. According to Solomon and Dimmer,

• 25 William Andrews, “Tokyo 2020’s…”, art. cit.

7As in previous Olympic Games, public protests against the Games and the use of public space by activists near the venues were also heavily policed in Tokyo – “an example of the securitization of the host city that celebration capitalism describes.”25 Anti-Olympic groups used social media and street protests as a means to resist the Olympic decisions and coalesce into a wider opposition movement. Their imagery was particularly evocative. Early releases before the Tokyo 2020 bid, focused on the triple disaster of 2011, such as the poster issued in the summer of 2013 figuring radioactivity signs and urging Japan to cancel its participation in the Olympic bid.

• 26 Jilly Traganou, “Dissent by Design: Anti-Olympic Action in Asia”, art. cit.
• 27 William Andrews, “Tokyo 2020’s…”, art. cit.
• 28 Jilly Traganou, “Dissent by Design: Anti-Olympic Action in Asia”, art. cit.

8After the success of the Tokyo 2020 bid in 2013 and until 2020, protests focused on the protection of the homeless and those displaced from their homes, on combatting the threat of public spaces and parks being converted into privately owned public space, which are highly exclusionary and securitized, and “the social imbalance that is effected by the spatial transformations that a city undergoes in order to host the Olympics.”26 Hangorin no Kai, also known as No Olympics 2020, and No 2020 Olympics Disaster OkotowaLink opposed neo-liberal policies including the establishment of privately owned public space, which is a popular policy in Japan,27 while various citizens groups were concerned about the wasteful use of taxpayer money on cosmetic projects.28 Simple illustrations portraying the protesters’ struggle against the powerful state – such as the one seen in figure 2 that depicts a young female protester trying to establish a dialogue about the need to reverse the Olympics with a member of the special police force – proliferated in the social media.

• 29 See Jules Boykoff, Celebration Capitalism…, op. cit.
• 30 Naomi Williams, “Transnational Teach-in: Environmental Destruction in Pyeongchang-Olympics Watch”, (...)
• 31 Takiguchi Takashi, “Why the Anti-Olympic Movement Is Gaining Momentum”, Nippon.com, 21 July 2021.
• 32 See the website of NOlympics LA 2021: https://nolympicsla.com/analysis/

10Counter-Olympic movements are not monolithic. A potent fraction are the No Olympics movements, which argue for the abolition of the Olympics.29 Since the 2010 Vancouver Winter Olympics, anti-Olympics movements have created a wider transnational coalition.30 Closely related are local movements that refuse hosting the Games in specific locations, for example, the Chicago No Games that fought for the cancelation of their 2016 bid, and Citizens of Colorado’s Futures that campaigned against the Denver 1976 Games – the only successful movement so far in canceling an Olympics after a city’s successful bid. In opposition to Tokyo 2020, a broadly antiglobalization-styled movement named Hangorin no Kai (No Olympics 2020) protested against the Olympics and developed into a citizens’ movement with wider support during the pandemic. Their statement made clear much of the outrage people felt against the IOC’s decision to hold the Games: “They are gambling with global public health, and the world is rejecting them.” In Paris too, there has been overall dissatisfaction in the area where the 2024 Olympics will be held, including protests against the excavation of the Aubervilliers Workers’ Gardens – used by economically disadvantaged people to grow vegetables – in order to construct a practice pool for the forthcoming Games.31 A new iteration of the movement, the NOlympic LA, is trying to make Los Angeles citizens aware that the forthcoming 2028 LA Games will increase surveillance and policing, destroy public space, and displace many from their homes, oftentimes people of color and poor people.32 Their publication of a report describing the risks associated with the 2028 Olympics was promoted on their social media with an evocative poster that features a military boot stepping over people’s houses and resisted by people’s own hands.

• 33 More information about TELCO can be found: https://www.citizensuk.org/chapters/east-london/
• 34 Pete Fussey, Joan Coaffee, Dick Hobbs, Securing and Sustaining the Olympic City…, op. cit.
• 35 Centre for Sport & Human Rights, “Rio 2016 Olympics: The Exclusion Games”, 15 August 2015 (https:// (...)

11Several counter-Olympic movements focus on extending specific demands that endeavor to reform the Olympic City model, or to use the Olympics as a vehicle to improve the host-city. An example of this demand-based approach is by The East London Citizens Organisation (TELCO)³³, an organization founded in 1996 that proposed an ethical agenda for the London 2012 Olympics. This agenda, signed on behalf of the London 2012 organizers, was claimed to have helped the bid become “eminently more winnable.”34 It focused on improvements and protection of the site of the Olympic park, Leah Valley of East London, a multicultural immigrant area among the poorest in the UK, with a high percentage of population with no basic literacy. The agenda proposed creating affordable homes managed through a Community Land Trust, provision of new jobs to people in the area, improved health services, support to existing and new educational institutions, and a Living Wage legacy. Since it was a Memorandum of Agreement, not a binding agreement, many of its points were not implemented. Rio’s Olympic popular committee also emphasized the need to end removal of citizens, to construct new public housing on surplus land from public developments, to protect vulnerable populations such as street vendors, and demanded the end of militarization, privatization and gentrification in the city, claiming the citizens’ right to protest was repressed in the pre-Olympic period.35

• 36 Jean-Loup Chappelet, “Olympic Environmental Concerns as a Legacy of the Winter Games”, The Internat (...)

13The history of Olympic-related environmental activism shows that citizens’ pressures can bring change, even if this has led to cities refusing or canceling the Games. According to Jean-Loup Chappelet, environmental rhetoric and “principles developed through the experiences of local organizers at most Winter Games since the 1970s” slowly became integrated into IOC policy in the 1990s. The planning, development, and building for the Games – especially the Winter Games – are a large undertaking with sweeping changes to the environment, and up until the 1970s, were built without any regard for ecological impact. The Lake Placid 1932 Games were the first to raise environmental concerns,36 with residents wanting to keep Lake Placid “wild”.

• 37 Ibid.
• 38 Ibid.

14In the 1950s and 60s, much of the resistance and opposition to large-scale facilities being built were on economic grounds. Between 1960 and 1970, ecological concerns started to take precedent. Many opposed to the Games argued they had reached their limits, and the momentous plans would cause detrimental damage. The Games in Sapporo in 1972 were the first Games to take environmental concerns seriously. The Games went forward, but the infrastructure needed was built in a 35-kilometer radius to reduce impact of development.37 According to Chappelet, by the end of the 1970s, “these [environmental, cultural, and economic] problems, together with others that affected the summer games (gigantism, boycotts, terrorism) became more widely known and led to a dearth of bids for the Winter Olympics.”38

• 39 Helen Jefferson Lenskyj, Olympic Industry Resistance: Challenging Olympic Power and Propaganda, Alb (...)

16For the 1980 Winter Games, Lake Placid hosted again and retrofitted and upgraded their facilities from 1932. More ecological concerns had emerged, and opposition and delays in building facilities put the Games at risk. The majority of citizens voted against the potential bids in Zurich, Hoch-Ybrig, and Interlaken for the 1976 Games, as well as both Davos and St. Moritz, and Chur and Arosa for the 1988 games based on ecological and cultural concerns. Similarly, citizens in Barcelona organized the “Commission Against the Barcelona Games”, which was composed of community groups opposed to the potential impacts to tenant’s rights and the environment.39

• 40 Molly Wilkinson Johnson, “Mega-Events, Urban Space, and Social Protest: The Olympia 2000 Bid in Reu (...)

17From 1990-1993, there was a large movement in newly reunified Berlin contesting the bid for the 2000 Olympics. Protesters were opposed not only to the negative impacts that the proposed Games would have on the city and the environment, but used creative protesting acts as a way to underscore their right to participate in urban planning decision making processes and the investment of public money into projects citizens were not involved in. The right to urban planning which was established in the 1970s and 1980s was undermined by the “presumed urgency of meeting IOC deadlines”. Several environmental groups argued that this by-passing of inclusive processes and community engagement “dismantles democratic co-determination”. Protesters were uniquely opposed to the games on the grounds of environmental devastation, and refuted the arguments that cleanup efforts led by planning projects related to the games would improve environmental conditions in Berlin. In Berlin, environmental concerns and advocacy were deeply intertwined with the right to the city. According to Molly Wilkinson Johnson, “protesters’ concerns about the ecological impact of the Olympic Games reflected [Edward] Soja’s insight that environmental justice is often a key part of spatial justice movements in contemporary cities.”40

• 41 International Olympic Committee Sport and Environmental Commission, Olympic Movement’s Agenda 21: S (...)
• 42 Naomi Williams, “Transnational Teach-in…”, art. cit.
• 43 “Rio Admits It Will Fail to Clean up ‘open Sewer’ of 2016 Sailing Venue”, The Guardian, 23 January (...)

19The Olympic administration has shown some degree of responsiveness to pressures of the civil society and political groups, especially those calling for reforms. In 1992, the Agenda 21 was issued, introducing the environment as the third pillar of the Olympic movement, after sports and culture.41 Crucially, the agenda defined “sustainable development” in a broad sense, addressing not only environmental but also economic, social, and political concerns. While London and Tokyo made several improvements regarding their environmental blueprint during their Games, environmental groups have been still critical of the overall impact of the Olympics on natural environments. Water and ski-related facilities in particular have been criticized for damaging environmental effects42 and Rio’s aim to clean Guanabara Bay, where several events took place, was unsuccessful.43

• 44 Institute of Management Development, “‘Change or Be Changed’, IOC President Thomas Bach Tells IMD A (...)
• 45 Ibid.
• 46 International Olympic Committee, Olympic Agenda 2020: Context and Background, Geneva, 2014.
• 47 Institute of Management Development, “‘Change or Be Changed’…”, art. cit.

20The 2020 Olympic Agenda in 2014, with its slogan “Change or be changed,”44 signaled a clear recognition of the need to transform the Olympics. For IOC President Thomas Bach, the IOC saw “the wave coming,” signaling that the external pressures received by counter Olympic movements and civil society were overwhelming.45 The IOC understood that for the values of Olympism “excellence, respect, friendship, dialogue, diversity, non-discrimination, tolerance, fair-play, solidarity, development and peace […] to remain relevant in society, the time for change is now.”46 This sentiment was echoed by Pierre Ducrey, Olympic Games Associate Director: “The Games have to change. Cities used to adapt to the Games, now the Games adapt to the city.”47 The 2020 agenda mandates that each future report needs to include an assessment of the opportunities and risks of each candidature, admitting the complexity of organizing the Games, their growing operational costs, and the investment of public money in infrastructure not always driven by sensible legacy objectives.

• 48 Helen Jefferson Lenskyj, Olympic Industry Resistance…, op. cit.

24While the IOC has made an attempt to adopt the language and spirit of the public, they still miss the mark. For example, recommendation 11 in Olympic Agenda 2020+5 is “strengthen the support to refugees and populations affected by displacement.” What about addressing those displaced by the Games themselves, both currently and historically? What about creating concrete policies to encourage the stability of host cities and their housing? IOC Recommendations are not concrete, binding, or fully encompassing the needs of athletes and host cities, and fail to seriously acknowledge the work done by activists to influence these recommendations or to improve social justice in their cities at large.48

• 49 Chantal Mouffe, The Democratic Paradox, London, Verso, 2000.

25There are still important questions pending: will the Olympics continue to catalyze urban changes of their host locations, and if so, who decides the nature of these changes? If large-scale Olympic transformations continue, could it be possible to imagine a different direction as the result of the current juncture: an Olympics that partners with diverse stakeholders rather than the urban elites to develop a socially just host-city? Is it possible for the Olympic organizers to engage the counter Olympic movements in ways that are not antagonistic, but rather agonistic, to use the term of political philosopher Chantal Mouffe?49

• 50 Helen Jefferson Lenskyj, Olympic Industry Resistance…, op. cit., p. 152.

27To advance the “common good” centering the disenfranchised, Olympic Committees could use their position to demand from cities mechanisms to meet their commitments. This might include accountable monitoring organizations of the Olympic City’s planning and implementation, asking that Organizing Committees and local governments become more inclusive and transparent. This would also demand focus on equity, and a collaborative framework that engages civil society advocates, and ensures that the most vulnerable populations are included and represented, while securing renewed political commitment for addressing poverty, housing insecurity and homelessness in the cities’ future. It is also important to convert the agendas into binding commitments of each bidding city, as suggested by Olympic Studies scholar Helen Lenskyj, and take upon her recommendation that social responsibility should become a fourth pillar of the Olympic movement, “helping the underserved populations.”50

• 51 I am grateful to my New School assistants Isis Gamble, Anna Matthiesen, and Elizabeth Sanders for t (...)

28Lastly, the Tokyo Games, with its underwhelming attendance, might in some paradoxical manner pave the way for future smaller scale Olympics, held in smaller stadiums, primarily with local attendance, and without the ambition to transform the host city’s future. This model could demand that the IOC reconsiders the demand for grand facilities, staging the Olympics as costly mega events, and conceiving a two-week event as a catalyst of urban transformation. In turn this might lead to the re-imagination of the Olympics as more humble events, with the focus on sport rather than spectacle – a low impact, low ecological footprint, ethical Olympics that commits to bringing no risk and no harm to the local communities.51