" A clear-eyed, critical examination of the social, political, and economic costs of hosting the 2016 summer Olympics The selection of Rio de Janeiro as the site of the summer 2016 Olympic Games set off jubilant celebrations in Brazil—and created enormous expectations for economic development and the advancement of Brazil as a major player on the world stage. Although the games were held without major incident, the economic, environmental, political, and social outcomes for Brazil ranged from disappointing to devastating. Corruption scandals trimmed the fat profits that many local real estate developers had envisioned, and the local government was driven into bankruptcy. At the other end of the economic spectrum, some 77,000 residents of Rio's poorest neighborhoods—the favelas—were evicted and forced to move, in many cases as far as 20 or 30 miles to the west. Hosting the games ultimately cost Brazil $20 billion, with little positive to show for the investment. Rio 2016 assembles the views of leading experts on Brazil and the Olympics into a clear-eyed assessment of the impact of the games on Brazil in general and on the lives of Cariocas, as Rio's residents are known. Edited by sports economist Andrew Zimbalist, the other contributors include Juliana Barbassa, Jules Boykoff, Jamil Chade, Stephen Essex, Renata Latuf, and Theresa Williamson. "

The women athletes of the 2016 Summer Olympics captivated the world: Simon Biles, the most decorated American gymnast of all time; Katie Ledecky, who shattered swimming records in multiple events; Michelle Carter, the first American gold medalist in shot put; Simone Manuel, the first African American woman to medal in individual swimming. Their accomplishments amazed us, as did their personal stories of persistence and hard work. The Golden Girls of Rio focuses on the paths to glory for these women athletes, how they got their start and rose to meteoric heights in the Rio games. The other swimming and gymnastic teammates are included in the story as well. An inspiring story, bursting with color and action and life, that will make you smile to see these champion athletes as little girls, and to revisit their triumphs in achieving Olympic gold.

A timely, no-holds barred, critical political history of the modern Olympic Games The Olympics have a checkered, sometimes scandalous, political history. Jules Boykoff, a former US Olympic team member, takes readers from the event’s nineteenth-century origins, through the Games’ flirtation with Fascism, and into the contemporary era of corporate control. Along the way he recounts vibrant alt-Olympic movements, such as the Workers’ Games and Women’s Games of the 1920s and 1930s as well as athlete-activists and political movements that stood up to challenge the Olympic machine.

"The summer of 1996. In nineteen days, six million visitors jostled about in a southern city grappling with white flight, urban decay and the stifling legacy of Jim Crow. Six years earlier, a bold, audacious partnership of a strong mayor, enlightened business leaders and Atlanta's Black political leadership dared to bid on hosting the 1996 Olympic Games. Unexpectedly, the city won, an achievement that ignited a loose but robust coalition that worked collectively, if sometimes contentiously, to prepare the city and push it forward. This is a story of how once-struggling Atlanta leveraged the benefits of the Centennial Games to become a city of international prominence. This improbable rise from the ashes is told by three urban planning professionals who were at the center of the story."--Back cover.

“A people’s history of the Olympics.”—New York Times Book Review A Boston Globe Best Book of the Year A Kirkus Reviews Best Nonfiction Book of the Year The Games is best-selling sportswriter David Goldblatt’s sweeping, definitive history of the modern Olympics. Goldblatt brilliantly traces their history from the reinvention of the Games in Athens in 1896 to Rio in 2016, revealing how the Olympics developed into a global colossus and highlighting how they have been buffeted by (and affected by) domestic and international conflicts. Along the way, Goldblatt reveals the origins of beloved Olympic traditions (winners’ medals, the torch relay, the eternal flame) and popular events (gymnastics, alpine skiing, the marathon). And he delivers memorable portraits of Olympic icons from Jesse Owens to Nadia Comaneci, the Dream Team to Usain Bolt.

Sport and peacemaking have evolved. It is no longer the case that the Olympic Games and war games exist in isolation from each other. Increasingly, policymakers, peacekeepers, athletes, development workers, presidents of nations and others combine forces in an "integrated" approach towards peace. This approach is located not only within the broader, historically evolved Olympic Movement but also in relation to a newly emerged social movement which promotes development and peace through sport. This book critically examines the ways in which this development is being played out at global, national and local levels, particularly in relation to the Olympic Movement and initiatives such as the biennial Olympic Truce Resolution. The volume constitutes a unique scholarly attempt to provide an in-depth comparative analysis of the sport of peacemaking in the context of the Olympic Movement. Through international comparison and empirically grounded case studies, the book provides an important new departure in the study of the social impact of the Olympic Movement and related peacemaking efforts. It discusses these issues from a range of academic disciplines, including history, sociology, political science, economics, geography, philosophy and international relations. This book was previously published as a special issue of Sport in Society.

Already the world has seen the political, economic, and cultural significance of hosting the 2008 Olympics in Beijing—in policies instituted and altered, positions softened, projects undertaken. But will the Olympics make a lasting difference? This book approaches questions about the nature and future of China through the lens of sports—particularly as sports finds its utmost international expression in the Olympics.

Marketing at the Olympics, the attraction and the rewards Essential reading in preparation for the 2012 London Olympics, the newly revised and fully updated second edition of The Olympic Games Effect offers fascinating sports marketing and branding insights into the promotion of the Games themselves, and their unique attraction for corporations in particular. The important lessons of past Olympics will be used to show a hundred year-plus tradition based on a several thousand year old testament to the love of sports and competition, revealing how, in recent years, this has evolved into a seductively attractive vehicle for a wide range of audiences, from consumers to corporations. Loaded with historical information on the Olympics, the book traces the history of the Olympics back to 776 BC. This legacy is vital to the ongoing success of the Olympics, and is at the heart of why brands care so much Packed with illustrations that illustrate how the Games have become arguably the world's most successful sports event and the marketing opportunities this has led to Includes relevant business strategies and recommendations to help companies understand how to make more effective sports sponsorship decisions This timely new edition of The Olympic Games Effect shows the value contributed by sponsoring the world's premier sporting event, and explains how, by extension, other global sports events have the potential to generate similarly impressive results for their sponsors.

NOlympians: Inside the Fight Against Capitalist Mega-Sports in Los Angeles, Tokyo and Beyond investigates the intersection of the global rise of anti-Olympics activism and the declining popularity of hosting of the Games. The Olympics were once buoyed by myths of luminous prosperity and upticks in tourism and jobs, but in recent years these assurances have been debunked. Now more than ever, it’s clear that the Olympics have transmogrified into a political-economic juggernaut that arrives with displacement, expanded policing, and anti-democratic backroom deals. Jules Boykoff – a former professional soccer player who represented the US Olympic soccer team – zooms in on Los Angeles, where the Democratic Socialists of America have launched the NOlympics LA campaign ahead of the 2028 Summer Games. Boykoff shows how DSA-LA’s anti-Olympics activism fits with the resurgence of socialism in the US and beyond. Boykoff’s research, based on more than 100 interviews with anti-Olympics activists, personal experiences at protests in Los Angeles, Rio de Janeiro, London, and Tokyo, academic research, mass- and alternative-media coverage, and Olympic archives, is the backbone for this story of activists fighting against the odds and embracing the transformative politics of democratic socialism.

A book as rich and sprawling as the seductive metropolis it evokes, Rio de Janeiro builds a kaleidoscopic portrait of this city of extremes, and its history of conflict and corruption. Award-winning novelist, ex-government minister and sociologist, Luiz Eduardo Soares tells the story of Rio through the everyday lives of its people: gangsters and police, activists, politicians and struggling migrant workers, each with their own version of the city. Taking us on a journey into Rio's intricate world of favelas, beaches and corridors of power, Soares reveals one of the most extraordinary cities in the world in all its seething, agonistic beauty.