Health, Physical Activity and the Rio de Janeiro 2016 Olympic Games: Legacy or Fallacy?

Abstract

It is generally expected that the Rio de Janeiro 2016 Olympic and Paralympic Games will bring health and social benefits to their host city and to Brazil. This assumption comes from "common sense", as a logical conclusion arising from the fact that host cities "inspire" and stimulate lifestyle changes. Benefits are also expected on tourism, self-image, architecture and the economy of the country as a whole. But are these expectations real and evidence-based? What parts of these "facts" are concrete and which ones are not? This paper suggests available ways of quantifying positive effects of hosting an Olympic Game, and puts the focus of this approach on the Rio de Janeiro 2016 Olympic Games and their true legacy, seeking scientific certainties.

State strategies for leveraging sports mega-events: unpacking the concept of ‘legacy’

“…Interestingly, there does not appear to be a great deal of difference between regime types in terms of hoped-for legacies; thus, advanced capitalist, autocratic and communist states share similar aims through hosting SMEs. The above works have been complemented admirably by those who focus on the main aims set out by specific sports events -which generally equate to hoped-for legacies from the events -the most notable of which, in the context of the Olympic Games, includes: Sydney's hosting of the 2000 Games (Faulkner et al, 2000;Stewart et al, 2004;Cashman, 2006;Lenskyj, 2012;Veal et al, 2012); the beleaguered 2004 Games in Athens (Tziralis et al, 2006;Hede, 2005;Boukas et al, 2013); the 'communist-consumerist' 2008 Games in Beijing (Xu, 2006;Jinxia and Managan., 2008;Manzenreiter, 2010;Zhang and Zhao, 2009;Preuss and Alfs, 2011;Giulianotti, 2015); the London 2012 Games (Girginov and Hills, 2008;2009;Girginov, 2011;Bloyce and Lovett, 2012;Green, 2012;Weed et al, 2012;Weed, 2014; Devine, 2013); Sochi's staging of the 2014 Winter Olympics (Alekseyena, 2014;Orttung and Zhemukhov, 2014;Grix and Kramareva, 2015;Muller, 2015;Golubchikov, 2017); and Rio's organization of the 2016 Games (Almeida et al, 2014;Osorio and Versiani, 2014;Rocha, 2015;Bizarro et al, 2016).…”

Zika Virus Controversies: Epidemics as a Legacy of Mega Events?

“…The idea of hosting world events such as the FIFA Soccer World Cup in 2014 and the Olympic Games in 2016 is quickly moving from intense crowd euphoria to the regrettable reality that neither Brazil's real problems of poverty and social inequality nor the economic or the environmental challenges will even minimally be faced. Recent published data on the expected legacy of the Olympic Games show that the effect of the Games will be more social segregation in Brazil and no improvement on health or physical activity of the host population [20] [21].…”