A new project investigates crisis and reform of the Olympic Games

Funded through the Interdisciplinary Centre for Sports Research, a new project entitled “Paris 2024, Los Angeles 2028: A Turnaround for the Olympics After the Crisis?” has been launched at the Department of Geography and Sustainability. Professor Martin Müller and postdoctoral researcher Sven Daniel Wolfe will investigate the preparations for the Summer Olympic Games in Paris 2024 and Los Angeles 2028. 

This project will explore developments in reaction to recent crises in hosting mega-events. After the wasteful planning of Sochi 2014 and Rio de Janeiro, very few cities have been interested in bidding for or hosting mega-events. Partly in response to these challenges, the International Olympic Committee has begun a process of reform. This project examines how organizers in Paris and Los Angeles are enacting developments in the context of these challenges and changes. 

The work focuses on questions of governance, costs, promised benefits, and the intersection of priorities between the event and the host city, examining the potential for exacerbating or ameliorating inequalities. With an advisory board that integrates expertise from five UNIL faculties (FTSR, FDCA, FGSE, HEC, SSP), this multi-disciplinary, international project hosted at the Institute of Geography and Sustainability (IGD) will continue until 2022.