Routledge Special Issue Collection on the Olympic and Paralympic Games

Knowledge Creation: Bibliometrics and General Trends

Dr Vassil Girginov, Brunel University, UK Professor Mike Collins, University of Gloucestershire, UK

2

The Routledge Special Issue Collection on the Olympic and Paralympic Games

“Mega-events such as the Olympics have become vehicles for different forms of

transformation. To date, however such events have largely escaped mainstream academic

scrutiny. With the Olympics arriving at the heart of London this situation is apt to change”.

Kevin Haggerty, University of Alberta (review of Securing and

Sustaining the Olympic City: Reconfiguring London for 2012 and Beyond)

The publication of 174 papers in the Routledge Special Issue Collection alone demonstrates

Haggerty’s prediction coming true.

Acknowledgements

The authors of this report would like to register their appreciative thanks to Jonathan

Manley, Kate Nuttall, Zita Balogh and Leen Van Broeck from Routledge for their

commitment and support to this project. Our sincere thanks are also extended to all journal

editors, special issues guest editors and the hundreds of contributors for sharing their work

and for enhancing our knowledge of Olympism.

Table of contents

1. Background to the project 3

2. Approach to analysis 4

3. Bibliometric results 8

4. The Routledge Olympic Special issues: knowledge creation 12

a. Historical possibilities for scholars to become interested in the Olympics

b. How objects enter and exit the Olympic gaze 15

c. Things that come to be in the world as result of the research activities of

Olympic scholars 17

d. How Olympic objects of scientific research change themselves over the

course of being studied 19

5. The process behind the Routledge Special Issue Collection 19

6. Conclusions 21

7. References 23

Appendices 25

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1. Background to the project

In recognition of the unique opportunity presented by the 2012 London Olympic and

Paralympic Games for the academic community, Routledge commissioned over 40 Olympic

and Paralympic focused journal special issues from a wide range of disciplines to be

published during 2012 and 2013. This project was part of a broader strategy designed to

create unique synergy between the global public and academic interest generated by the

London Games, the publishing and knowledge disseminating capabilities of Routledge, and

the 2012 International Convention on Science, Education and Medicine in Sport (ICSEMIS),

the world largest scientific gathering which takes place every four years before the Olympic

Games. The ICSEMIS took place in Glasgow from 19-24 July 2012 and attracted some 2,700

scholars from 78 countries. The main objectives of this strategy were twofold: to generate

new knowledge and to raise the status of Olympic and sport studies in general.

Routledge has been at the forefront of promoting critical Olympic scholarship for

over 40 years. Its first Olympic-related publication dates back to 1969 (Abrahams, 1969),

and has since expanded considerably to include more than 2000 dedicated books and

journal articles. Therefore, when the idea for this project was first proposed in early 2009, it

did not take any persuasion for Routledge to embrace it and to offer the full editorial,

logistical and financial support of a leading global academic publisher needed for

implementing an undertaking of this kind.

The main purpose of the report is to critically reflect on the new knowledge and the

multidisciplinary legacy of academic writing that has been generated in publishing the first

23 journal special issues as well as on the process behind the project. What follows is the

first part of the analysis dealing mainly with bibliometrics and some general trends. The

second part of the report - ‘Thematic orientation and knowledge creation’ - will be available

in early 2014 after all Olympic and Paralympic special issues have been published.

First, this was an original and unique project that has never been attempted before.

Most commentators agree that Olympism is a complex phenomenon that requires a

multidisciplinary and interdisciplinary approach, but so far the academic community has

failed to embrace the study of the Olympic Games in a concerted and coordinate d fashion.

Second, a number of logistical issues had to be addressed. Journal publishing is a

complicated business and the relationship between Routledge and different journals

depend on a number of factors including journal ownership (i.e., a professional society or a

single institution), the editorial policy of the journal and the contractual arrangements with

the publisher. Finally, in signing up to the project both Routledge and separate journals have

taken a risk as producing a special issue has always been a challenging prospect, regardless

of how popular a topic may look like.

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The following five sections of this report detail what and how the Routledge Special

Issue Collection on the Olympic and Paralympic Games project was achieved. The first

section explains the approach to the analysis; the second section discusses the bibliometrics

of the collection; the third section examines four interrelated questions concerned with

what makes it possible for scholars to engage with the Olympics as a topic, how

topics/issues enter and exit the Olympic gaze; what new ideas have been introduced as a

result of the research undertaken, and how Olympic objects of scientific research change

themselves over the course of being studied. The fourth section discusses areas of potential

and neglect and the readiness of academia to respond to old and (re-)emerging issues, and

finally, the logistics of the project are discussed.

It should be noted that our findings are limited to the 23 special issues referred to in

this report and that what follows should not be seen as a comprehensive analysis of the

field of Olympic and Paralympic studies. The authors are conscious that a great number of

new books and academic articles have been produced by Routledge and other publishers

over the course of this project.

2. Approach to analysis

The analysis of the content of 22 very distinct academic journals and over 170

articles from a range of academic disciplines across the arts, humanities and social sciences,

united loosely by the word ‘Olympic’, presented considerable methodological challenges. It

was not possible to apply well-tested methods such as systematic review or meta-analysis to

understand a particular trend or issue within the collection of special issues. However, we

were able to do a basic measuring of the authorship, methods and topics as set out below.

For each paper we have identified: the authors and their gender, discipline, country and

institution (usually but not always an Institute of Higher Education), which qualitative or

quantitative methods were used, the main topic and 4 keywords to describe it, and

whether, in our judgement, it made an empirical, theoretical or discursive new contribution

to knowledge (see Appendix 1 for details). Table 1 shows the invited journals and the

journals that have expressed an interest in the project. Journals from nine broad fields of

scientific enquiry across arts, humanities , social sciences and engineering were invited

including education, engineering, environment, culture, leisure, media, policy and planning,

tourism and sport. Table 2 shows the participating journals and the topic of the special

issue. Appendix 2 lists all participating journals and provides a hyperlink to the special issue.

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Table 1. Invited journals and those which expressed interest in publishing a special issue

Journal Field Journal

Education

Educational Review

Archives and Records

International Journal of Disability Development and Education

Physical Education & Sport Pedagogy

Engineering

Footwear Science

Journal of Building Performance Stimulation

Structure & Infrastructure Engineering

Environment

Journal of Environmental Policy & Planning

Landscape Research

Transport Reviews

Culture

Celebrity Studies

Consumption Markets and Culture

Cultural Trends

International Journal of Heritage Studies

Social Identities

Visual Studies

Leisure

Leisure Sciences

Leisure Studies

Media

Critical Studies in Media Communication

Mass Communication and Society

Policy & Planning

City

New Political Economy

International Gambling Studies

International Planning Studies

Mobilities

Planning Perspectives

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Tourism

Current Issues in Tourism

Journal of Policy Research in Tourism, Leisure and Events

Journal of Sport & Tourism

Journal of Tourism and Cultural Change

Visitor Studies

Sport

European Journal of Sport Science

European Sport Management Quarterly

The International Journal of the History of Sport

International Journal of Sport Policy and Politics

Journal of Sports Sciences

Measure in Physical Education and Exercise Science

Qualitative Research in Sport and Exercise

Research Methods in Sports Medicine

Reflective Practice

Soccer and Society

Sport in History

Sport in Society

Sport, Ethics and Philosophy

Sport Technology – 7/5 papers – 9/7 (paralympic)

Sports Biomechanics

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Table 2. Routledge Special Issue Collection on the Olympic and Paralympic Games (2012)

Journal name Volume Issue Issue title J-IF

City 16 4 Un-linking the rings: Cities and the Olympic Games N/A

Educational Review 64 3 Olympism and Education: A Critical Review 0.66

International Journal of Disability, Development and Education 59 3 The Paralympic Games 0.592

Archives and Records 33 1 Community Engagement and the Olympic and Paralympic Games N/A

Reflective Practice 13 3 Coaching for Performance: Realising the Olympic Dream N/A

Sport in Society 15 5 Bearing Light: Flame Relays and the Struggle for the Olympic Movement N/A

Sport in Society 15 6 The Olympic Movement and the Sport of Peacemaking N/A

Research in Sports Medicine 20 3 & 4 ACL Injury: Incidences, Healing, Rehabilitation and Prevention N/A

Mass Communication and Society 15 4 Olympics, Media, and Society 0.827

Measurement in Physical Education and Exercise Science 16 3 World Record Prediction and Human Limit in Track and Field and

Swimming

N/A

Celebrity Studies 3 3 The Olympics N/A

European Sport Management Quarterly 12 4 Managing the Olympic Experience: Challenges and Responses 0.875

Journal of Sports Sciences 30 11 Sport Science and the Olympics 1.93

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Journal of Sport & Tourism 16 4 Sport, Tourism & the Olympic Games N/A

Leisure Studies 31 3 Leisure, Culture & the Olympic Games 0.556

Journal of Policy Research in Tourism, Leisure and Events 4 2 The Unintended Policy Consequences of the Olympics and Paralympics N/A

Qualitative Research in Sport and Exercise 4 2 Paralympics and Disability Sport N/A

Sport, Ethics and Philosophy 6 2 Olympic Ethics and Philosophy N/A

Sport in History 32 2 Britain, Britons and the Olympic Games N/A

Journal of Tourism and Cultural Change 10 2 Tourism and the Olympics 0.175

Sports Technology 3 4 Aerodynamics in Olympic Sports N/A

The RUSI journal 157 2 Olympic Security N/A

Visual Studies 27 2 Olympics Special Issue N/A

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As the underlying premise of the Routledge Special Issue Collection was to promote

new critical scholarship, it was decided to focus this analysis on knowledge creation. In the

context of the present report, knowledge is interpreted both as a means (i.e., routine-

procedural knowledge that is concrete and manual) and as a goal (i.e., declarative-

generative knowledge that is abstract and intellectual). It is generally believed that the apex

of generative declarative knowledge is creative knowledge in the sense of knowledge

creation (Kaufman and Runco, 2009). However, knowledge is not an enduring object with

constant properties, but rather something which is constantly recreated in a particular

context. Therefore, it has to do with understanding, and as Piaget (1976) argued, “to

understand is to create”. The main generative mechanism for new knowledge creation

comes from the exercise of judgement – the ability of researchers to draw new distinctions

concerning an issue at hand within the context of a dialogical relationship with particular

group, community or society (Tsoukas, 2009).

Since the themes of the special issues in this collection spanned a wide range of

fields, from pedagogy to psychology, management, politics and bio-sciences, it made little

sense to focus on discipline-specific knowledge, as the analysis would have been very

limited. Instead, the analysis borrowed from Hacking’s (2002) historical ontology approach

to analyse the knowledge generated in the field of Olympic studies. We were conscious that

the analysis engages with a subject area with long history and contested interpretations,

and that the studies under consideration have been published at a particular historic

moment in time leading up to the London 2012 Games.

Hacking (2002) outlines three main approaches to historical ontology, each

concerned with a different central issue. The first approach examines how the historical

possibilities arise for scholars to take interest in a ‘thing’. The second approach is concerned

with how objects enter and exit the scientific gaze, and the third focuses on the things that

come to be in the world as result of the very activities of scientists. Ribes and Polk (2012)

proposed a fourth approach to historical ontology, which is interested in how objects of

scientific research themselves change over the course of being studied. The combination of

these four approaches provided a structure to the analysis. More specifically the following

questions were addressed:

(i) How did the possibility emerge for the wider academic community to take

an interest in Olympic and Paralympic matters?

(ii) How did objects enter and exit the Olympic and Paralympic gaze?

(iii) Which topics and issues have emerged as result of the research activities

of Olympic and Paralympic scholars? and

(iv) Which Olympic/Paralympic-related phenomena have themselves changed

over the course of being studied?

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3. Bibliometric results

(Note: the data below are based on the first 23 special issues, as of January 21st

2013).

Volume: These issues covered 2,535 pages of varying sizes and formats, and contained

174 articles including relevant editorials. The smallest were the pages (two articles) in

the Royal United Services Institute Journal on security and private investment in

London, and the largest (201 pages) in Sport Ethics & Philosophy (13 articles). These

were prepared by 308 writers, of whom 35% were women.

Of these, 36% were from non-sport disciplines and backgrounds, who had not published

regularly on sport or Olympism. The twelve sports- related journals had been running

for an average of 17 years, with only three relatively new titles; the 11 non-sport

journals were twice as old on average at 34 years, with only two new titles.

Special focuses: As Table 3 shows, there were eleven specific topics, only one of which

- paralympism - appeared in both a sport and non-sport journal. Only sports tourism

was also given two separate issues. The most microscopic attention was given to

diagnosing, treating and preventing anterior cruciate ligament injuries, one of the most

common and debarring sports injuries.

It was good to see the introduction of fields such as archiving, photography, journalism,

architecture and planning. Many, of course, will have used 2012 opportunistically, and

probably will not repeat their adventure. Likewise, it was good to see journals like

Archives and Records, City, Mass Communication & Society, the Royal United Services

Institute Journal entering the Olympic fray. Eleven journal editors were from a non-

sports background and some invited guest editors knew something about the field.

Table 3. Journals’ special focuses

Focus Journal/Issue No of

articles

AC Ligament injuries Res in Sp Med 20,3-4 (7)

Torch Relay Sp in Society 15,5 (8)

Paralympics Qual Res in Sp Ex& Health 4,2 (7)

Olympics & peace(making) Sp in Society 15, 6 (11)

Sports tourism Sp & Tourism 16,4 (4)

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J Tour Cul Change 10,2 (8)

OG unintended consequences J Pol Res in To Lei Events 4,2 (5)

Archiving Archives Records 33,1

(5)

Olympic celebrity Celebrity Studies 3,3 (5)

Media coverage Mass Comm & Society 15,4 (8)

Coaching Reflective Practice 13,3 (11)

Security Jnl Roy Unit Serv Instit 75,2 (2)

Paralympics Int Jnl Dis Dev & Educ 59,3 (7)

Origins: Authors come from only 19 countries, but 88% from six countries: UK 116

(38%), USA 57 (19%), Canada 39 (13%), Australia 38(12%), China 9(3%), and Italy 9 (3%).

People are obviously clustered by discipline, and often work with their PhD tutors or

students. Likewise, editors choose individuals they know well and believe, rightly on the

evidence, will deliver, which tends to cluster writing (for a sophisticated analysis of

sports scholarship in the US, see Quatman and Chelladuriai, 2008). Of the top four

countries of origin 110 HEIs were mentioned, but only twelve five or more times, as

follows:

UK USA Australia Canada

Loughborough 9 U Chicago 5 Griffith U 6 U Ottawa 5

UC Lancs 8 U Sydney 5

ChrCh U Cant 6 U Queensland 5

U Wolv’ton 5

Leeds Met U 5

Bath U 5

Harperbury C 5

Total HEI 43 32 14 22

Non HEI 16 7 5 4

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In the UK it is not surprising to see Loughborough in first place, but Harperbury

College’s appearance is due to three authors working together. There were a few

people from outside HEIs, local or central government, and private companies or

consultancies. Half of the papers had single authors, 27% had two, 14% three and a

handful more –one Australian paper on preventive practice for AC Ligament injuries had

nine, from six HEIs!

Coverage of Games and allied issues: As Table 4 shows, 29% papers focussed on a

particular summer or winter Games, and only one article in ten focused on London

2012, with Beijing next.

Table 4. Focus on particular Olympic or Paralympic Games

Summer venues Winter venues

Earlier 3 Turin 2006 2

Sydney 2000 2 Vancouver 2010 4

Athens 2004 6 Sochi 2014 2

Beijing 2008 12

London 2012 17 Youth Games 2010 2

Rio de Janeiro 2016 3

Disciplines: 14 sports-related disciplines and 29 non-sports disciplines were presented,

of which ten had more than four people, as follows (Table 5)

Table 5. Disciplines in sport and non-sport special issues

Sports no Non-sports no

Sociology 23 Journalism 13 (2 for sport)

Psychology 23 Engineering 12

PE 16 (5 Adapted) Photography 10

Philosophy 16 Geography 9

13

Management 15 Sociology 8

Biomechanics 12 Design/architecture 5

Sport tourism 12 Political science 5

Sports medicine 12 Planning/urban studies 5

Sports history 8 Cultural studies 5

Coaching studies 8 History 5

This is an eclectic mixture in both cases, again substantially affected by the journals

which chose to take part, and the clustering of scholars. Perhaps one of the most

interesting teams was one from four US Universities studying the effect of parent child

functioning and TV watching on disabled and non-disabled children, with a paediatric

medic (interested in statistics), a child physiologist, a sociologist and a public health

specialist.

Research Methods: In this sample, quantitative methods are barely visible-

experiments by the biomechanists, some modelling but many use documentary analysis

and interviews (Table 6).

Table 6. Research methods used by the authors (where specified/derivable, excluding

editorials)

Qualitative Quantitative

Document analysis 74 Ethnography 3 Experiments 5

Interviews 20 Questionnaires 4* Modelling 4

Focus groups 2 Observation 5 C factor analysis 1

Discourse/debate 17 Photographs 9 Statistical modelling 1

Semiotics 1 Literature review 6+

Descriptive stats 3

*two by email and one claimed to be systematic

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4. The Routledge Special Issue Collection: Knowledge Creation

How, historically did scholars come to engage with the Olympic theme?

From the first modern history of the Ancient Olympic Games by Gilbert West (1749)

to the present day, scholars have been interested in the subject and a great deal of

knowledge has been created. But the conditions to enable engagement with the topic

have varied significantly over the centuries. There were three broad categories of

conditions – Games, governance and publishing-related - that have stimulated the

academic community to take an interest in Olympic matters.

Games-related conditions

London marked a departure from the traditional model of a single-themed or

abstract Games focusing on athletes (e.g., Athens 2004), regeneration (e.g., Barcelona

1996), the environment (e.g., Sydney 2000) or harmony, technology and peace (e.g.,

Beijing 2008). London made two concrete offers. The first was inward-looking and

promised to deliver a lasting social, economic and sporting legacy for Britain. The second

was outward-looking and promised to inspire the youth of the world to engage with

sport, which by extension was London’s way of saying ‘thank you’ to the Olympic

Movement for awarding the Games to the UK.

Governance-related conditions

Never before in the history of the Olympic Games has the government of the host

country made a commitment to use the event to deliver six substantial promises:

economic (supporting new jobs and skills, encouraging trade, inward

investment and tourism);

sporting (developing a world class sport system, providing more sports

facilities and encouraging participation in school sports and more widely);

social and volunteering (inspiring others to volunteer and encouraging social

change);

regeneration (reuse of venues, new homes, improved transportation, in East

London and at other sites) and

for people with disabilities (changing societal perceptions about disability and

creating equal opportunities for participation in life - DCMS, 2007, 2009).

The delivery of this commitment entailed putting in place complex governance

mechanisms and structures to steer collective actions, beyond what the I nternational

Olympic Committee (IOC) had previously required of the host Organising Committee.

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Publishing-related conditions

Routledge is a world leading academic publisher with a journal portfolio including

more than 1,700 academic journals. No other publisher has the same capacity and

breadth in its publishing programme. The company headquarters are in the UK which

allowed for better coordination with the Routledge Special Issue Collection’s executive

editor, journal editors and authors. Of the 23 journals participating in the project so far,

74% (17) had a UK-based editor and editors of the special issue. Another important

condition that emerged in the process of publishing this collection was Routledge’s

three-year engagement with ICSEMIS as a sponsor, allowing for active global promotion

of the project. An innovation of the project with considerable implications for creating

future possibilities for engaging with the academic community on Olympic themes was

to make some 70 articles (40%) of the content freely available online, which resulted in

some 5,000 downloads by the end of December 2012.

These three interrelated conditions have framed the London Games not just as a

sporting event but as a social, political, economic and cultural phenomenon with far

reaching implications. These also naturally generated the curiosity of researchers who

started interrogating a range of issues related to the organisation, management, political

and legal regulation of the Games, their media coverage, and their beneficiaries. Table 7

shows the history of involvement of non-sport journals with Olympic and Paralympic

matters prior to the launch of the Routledge Special Issue Collection in 2012. Over the

course of more than 150 years of their combined existence, the ten non-sport journals

published 14 articles dedicated to Olympic and Paralympic matters. Although the five-

fold growth of papers around 2012 in the ten journals cannot be solely attributed to the

project, it is clear that the combination of historical

Journal Established Olympic articles

published to 2012

(N)

Special issue articles

submissions/published

(N)

Celebrity Studies 2010 0 ?/5

City 1996 4 ?/5

Educational Review 1948 0 16/9

Intl Journal of

Disability,

Development and

1954 2 ?/6

16

Education

Journal of Policy

Research in Tourism,

Leisure & Events

2009 4 ?/6

Journal Royal United

Services Institute

1857 2 ?/2

Journal of the Society

of Archivists

1955 0 ?/3

Journal of Tourism &

Cultural Change

2003 0 ?/8

Mass Communication

& Society

1998 2 40/9

Visual Studies 2002 0 ?/15

Total articles 14 ?/68

Table 7. Non-sport journals’ record of publishing dedicated Olympic articles

conditions has created an enhanced possibility for scholars from a range of non-

sporting background to engage with the Olympic theme. So, where disciplinary

attachments could be verified 45% (1233 of 276) authors came from non-sport

departments or institutions, exactly the sort of academic ‘diaspora’ one would hope to

engender through such an initiative.

Which topics entered and exited the Olympic gaze?

Warning, Ju Mae & Toohey (2008) mapped the discipline of the Olympic Games , and

identified 13 thematic clusters including critical feminism, critical reformers, sport policy

and international relations, ideals and questions, drugs, the revival, athletic

performance, legal aspects, performance, the history of women’s Olympic involvement,

the Ancient Games, the North American perspective and Olympism.

Although the historical period under consideration is very short to make any grand

conclusions about the total exit or emergence of topics in the Olympic gaze, the

Routledge Special Issue Collection nonetheless allowed for some interesting

observations to be made. Eight of Warning et al’s (2008) clusters were present in

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various forms in several journals. Four clusters, including international relations, the

revival (there was one article on Ancient Games), legal aspects and the Ancient Games

did not receive any treatment.

Well- worn topics related to the Olympics which had previously commanded much

writing but did not do so in this collection were gender (only four articles),race and

ethnic issues (three articles), only four items on the hot topic of the previous two

summer Games, environmental impact, and nothing so far on doping.

More specifically, we consider that several topics have successfully entered the

Olympic gaze. The focus of the European Sport Management Quarterly special issue was

on managing the Olympic experience, which is a topic of critical importance to the

Olympic Movement in times of changing multi-polar systems of international relegations

and a deep crisis of Western economies. This is because, as the guest editors noted,

“both of these phenomena have important implications for Olympic management, in

relation to understanding the issues of delivery of an event with universalist pretensions

in culturally varied contexts, and in respect to the need to deliver value in times of

economic difficulty” (Chatziefstathiou and Henry, 2012, p. 313). Since almost all of this

writing preceded the event, some ideas on how management performed will have to

await volume 2 of the Routledge Handbook of the London 2012 Olympic & Paralympic

Games (Girginov, forthcoming) and the Ecorys/Loughborough University (2013) meta-

evaluation for the Department of Culture Media and Sport. It is of course very difficult

for researchers to get into the host OG/governmental machine at its time of greatest

pressure.

The topic of Visual Studies was on ‘Seeing the Olympics: Images, Spaces, Legacies’.

The editors and the contributing authors introduced a different perspective on the

Olympics as an international sporting spectacle. Using a style of photo-essays almost

entirely absent from the main stream Olympic/Paralympic studies, this special issue

provided “a series of shifting lenses on this complex global event, extending the visual

repertoire for representing the Olympics and providing new insights into its significance,

local and global” (Coles, Knowles and Newbury, 2012, p. 117).

The Journal of Tourism and Cultural Change explored ‘Tourism at the Olympic

Games: Visiting the World’. This special issue has shifted the academic preoccupation

with tourism solely as a consumptive practice of late capitalism to a much less

understood and explored topic. As the editors of the journal Ploner and Robinson (2012,

p. 99) suggested “at the level of the tourist experience, the Olympic Games produce a

kaleidoscopic range of intangible engagements with place, time and spectacle, fresh

negotiations with ideas of nation and the cosmopolitan, invoking collective memories,

touching on emotions and generating a sense, however fleeting, of global communitas”.

18

Both the Journal of Sports Sciences and Measurement in Physical Education and

Exercise Science have submitted to scrutiny the link between sport science and the

Olympics. The success of the Olympic spectacle relies to a large extent on the record

breaking performances of athletes. But Balmer, Pleasence and Nevill (2012) questioned

human abilities and argued that in some sports/disciplines further general growth in

performance will need to rely on technological or technical innovations. This issue poses

a range of ethical issues for sport scientists and event organisers.

At the heart of the Olympic and Paralympic Games project is the notion of

excellence, as expressed through the exploits of athletes at the Games, and its

inspirational power to draw young people to sport and better citizenship. Celebrity

Studies submitted for consideration the controversial role of modern elite athletes when

they get elevated to celebrity status and whether they serve the cause of Olympism or

the reproduction of an achievement culture and commercial consumption.

Two journals – Educational Review and Sport, Ethics and Philosophy, albeit

completely independently and from different perspectives, submitted the topic of

whether Olympism, as an educational philosophy, is fit for children and schools. While

Educational Review was concerned with Olympism in the curricula and the experiences

of children and athletes, Sport, Ethics and Philosophy questioned the values of the IOC’s

latest project, the Youth Olympic Games.

Of course, the legacy issue has appeared in the literature for some years, for the

earlier times as a matter of good after-use of the venues, then of environmental

sustainability, and more recently and in response to the London bid of social

sustainability in terms of increased mass and elite participation, and local residents and

traders feeling fairly treated. This time 24 articles concerned themselves with aspects of

legacy, two raising the issue of the level of security precautions after the New York and

London terrorist attacks and after Beijing’s precedent, one even speaking of ‘lockdown

London,’ elements of which will outlast the event.

What were Researcher- generated Olympic topics?

A notable contribution of the Routledge Special Issue Collection on the Olympic and

Paralympic Games has been to the further construction of the topic of Olympic legacy.

While concerns with mega events’ legacy have existed before this project, what the 24

(14%) articles in this collection have achieved was to interpret Olympic legacies as no

longer an abstract concept but to legitimise it as a specific way of being and acting.

Through introducing new categories of legacy subject to scrutiny and classification

systems for their interpretation and management, various contributions have been

questioning the role of the Olympic Games as a project for social change as well as the

19

behaviour of individuals and institutions to live up to the proclaimed legacies of the

Games.

What were changing Olympic phenomena?

The Routledge Special Issue Collection on the Olympic and Paralympic Games made

some distinct contributions to the fourth analytical question, which Olympic-related

phenomena have themselves changed over the course of being studied? Firstly, Sport,

Ethics and Philosophy examined the changing nature of the fundamental Olympic

values, the format of competition, and the key factors that have contributed to this

change. More specifically, the special issue engaged with one of the more recent

innovations within the Olympic Movement – the Youth Olympic Games, which for the

first time included mixed gender and nationality competitions. It questioned where the

new slogan ‘Excellence, Friendship, Respect’ sprang from and its relation to earlier

formulations or other emphases. As the guest editors, McNamee and Parry (2012,

p.104) observed “this mutation reminds us that the Olympic Games, and the Olympic

movement more generally, is not a static phenomenon, but one that changes through

time, and requires continued attention and analys is”.

Secondly, the special issue Journal of Sport & Tourism, as well as other papers in

various journals, not only helped generate a new topic of investigation, but also

documented the changing interpretations of Olympic legacy and their implications for

policy makers, educators and managers. Weed, Stephens and Bull (2011) point out that

the Games were, to borrow an economic term, an ‘exogenous shock’ to English tourist

policy, which in London then took a battering from local policies to discourage workers

and traders form travelling in the Olympic fortnight, when some regular tourist flows

had already been diverted (as in most world-city Olympics) by threats of congestion and

high prices, which did not eventuate.

Thirdly, in the first of the two special issues of Sport in Society, ‘Bearing light: Flame

relays and the struggle for the Olympic Movement, the guest editor, John MacAloon,

offered a fascinating study of the Olympic Flame Relay which was instituted in 1936 to

celebrate the Berlin Olympics, spanning 25 years, from the Los Angeles in 1984 to the

IOC pronouncement in 2009 that there would be no more global relays. As MacAloon

(2012, 575) pointed out “this extended ethnological research offers a rare case study of

continuity and change in a leading transnational and transcultural ritual form. It also

further exposes the managerial revolution, with its characteristic language of ‘world’s

best practice,’ that has succeeded the commercial revolution in international Olympic

affairs”.

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5. The process behind the Routledge Special Issue Collection on the Olympic and

Paralympic Games

The Routledge Special Issue Collection was conceived as a contribution of the

research community to the academic legacy of the London Olympic Games. The decision

making process on the part of the publisher took a very short time which allowed a

sufficient period to plan and prepare the special issues. A critical part of the process was

its openness, inclusiveness and lack of any attempts to appropriate and institutionalise

the initiative. All journals retained the editorial freedom to decide on the thematic

orientation and the format of their special issue. The editorial boards of some journals

took longer than others to negotiate these issues, but eventually they were able to

publish their collections. The only coordinating roles were these of the executive

academic editor and Routledge to ensure regular and efficient communications with

editors and authors, and quick logistical decisions.

Ensuring a timely subscription to the project by as many journals and as early as

possible proved to be critical for creating greater synergy between the various special

issues, topics and authors. As a result, several journals which were not originally

approached expressed an interest in the project, and delivered very original numbers.

There were also journals which for various reasons had to drop out. Regular

communications between Routledge’s editorial team and participating editors was

maintained for three years through two workshops, a news bulletin and countless

personal emails and telephone calls.

The project was widely promoted through a number of interna tional conferences

between 2009 and 2012, via global professional email lists, ICSEMIS congress

communications, and a dedicated original online platform – Routledge Online Studies on

the Olympic and Paralympic Games (www.routledgeonlinestudies.com).

The official launch of the project took place at a friendly reception during ICSEMIS in

Glasgow, was hosted by Routledge, and generated a high level of publicity (Figures 1, 2).

21

Figure 3

Team members, Kate Nuttall, Rachel Kirton and Vassil Girginov (left to right) at the RCUK

award ceremony with Gareth Smith, head of Podium

Figure 1

Executive Editor, Vassil Girginov

at the launch in Glasgow

Figure 2

Team members Kate Nuttall and Vassil

Girginov at the launch in Glasgow

22

Further, the Research Council UK (RCUK) presented the prestigious bronze award for an

exceptional research contribution to the Routledge Special Issue Collection project

members at a gala reception in East London on 2nd May 2012 (Figure 3), amongst more than

200 projects entered in the national competition.

Conclusion

What are the challenges arising from this wide collection of paper?

For publishing – the project initiative was innovative and demonstrated that

publishers can make significant contribution to promoting multidisciplinary and

interdisciplinary studies in a particular field through focused publication

programmes. Although such initiatives should not be seen as substitute for proper

research projects, they can nonetheless provide considerable impetus in generating

new knowledge, and can be selectively replicated with regard to other events or just

to promote a field.

For Olympic/Paralympic research – given the fixed timescale, how can proper

measurement of longer term legacies be successfully instituted when the earliest

they can have an effect is on the Games after next? Can more research be done to

gather the opinions and responses of schoolchildren, host city residents and citizens?

And can there be follow up on earlier studies? Only two, one empirical and one

opinionative, appear in this collection.

For the IOC - what are the sport development and social legacies of the Games to

be? Does it want the Olympic machine to continue growing in economic power,

political influence and organisational complexity, foreclosing its hosting by all , but

the ‘safe hands’ of mega-cities, when the generative effect is clearly greater on cities

of a more modest size?

For host cities - can top down, mandated and bottom-up responsive-to-people

planning be reconciled?

Even at this interim report stage, Routledge may be pleased with the outcome of the

initiative in terms of the number of non-sport journal and authors taking part, at some new

topics, and the stimulation of many new ideas.

23

References

Abrahams, H. (1969). The Commonwealth at the Olympics, The Round Table, 59: 233, 44-50

Balmer, N., Pleasence, P. and Nevill,A. (2012). Evolution and revolution: Gauging the impact

of technological and technical innovation on Olympic performance Jnl of Sports Sciences

30,11 1075-83

Chatziefstatiou, D., and Henry, I. (2012) .Managing the Olympic experience: Challenges and

responses Eur Sport Management Quarterly 12,4 313-5

Coles, P. Knowles, C. and Newbury, D. (2012) Seeing the Olympics: images, spaces, legacies

Visual Studies 27, 2 117-8

Girginov, V. (forthcoming 2014?) Routledge Handbook of the 2012 Games Volume 2

Celebrating the Games London: Routledge

Grant Thornton/Ecorys/Loughborough University/Oxford Economics (2012) Meta-

evaluation of the impacts of the London 2012 Olympic and Paralympic Games Interim

evaluation London: GT

Hacking, I. (2002). Historical Ontology. London: Harvard University Press.

Kaufmann, G. And Runco, M. (2009) Knowledge management and the management of

creativity, 150-9I in T. Rickards, M. Runco and S. Moger (Eds) The Routledge Companion to

Creativity London: Routledge.

MacAloon, J.J. (2012). Introduction: the Olympic flame relay. Local knowledge of a global

ritual form Sport in Society 15, 5 575-94.

McNamee, M. and Parry, J. (2012). Olympic ethics and philosophy: Old wine in new bottles

Sport Ethics and Philosophy 6, 2 104-7.

Ploner, J. and Robinson, M. (2012). Tourism at the Olympic Games: visiting the world Jnl of

Tourism and Cultural Change10,2 99-104.

Quatman, C., and Chelladuria, P. (2008). Social network theory and analysis Jnl of Sport

Management 22, 3 338-60.

Tsoukas, H. (2009). Creating organisational knowledge dialogically: an outline of a theory. In

T. Rickards, M. Runco and S. Moger (Eds). The Routledge Companion to Creativity, (pp. 160-

176). London: Routledge.

Veal, A,J., Toohey, K. and Frawley, S.(2012). The sport participation legacy of the Sydney

2000 Games and other international sporting events hosted in Australia Jnl of Policy

Research in Tourism, Leisure and Events 4,2 155-84

24

Warning,P. Ju Mae,R.C. and Toohey,K. (2008). Mapping the discipline of the Olympic Games

in author co-citation analysis, SMU Economics & Statistics Working Paper15 Sydney

University of Technology

Weed, M., Stephens, J. and Bull, C. (2011). An exogenous shock to the system? The London

2012 Olympic and Paralympic Games and British Tourist policy Jnl of Sport & Tourism, 16,4

345-77

West, G. (1749). Odes of Pindar, With several other Pieces in Prose and Verse, Translated

from the Greek. To which is prefixed A Dissertation on the Olympick Games (London, 1749,

1753, 1766; Dublin, 1751).

25

Appendix 1 Lists from bibliometry 21.1.2014

Issues 23 Articles 174 including editorials where relevant Pages 2,535

Authors 299 males, 109 female;

Countries of origin

UK 116 Greece 5 Serbia 2

USA 57 Czech Republic 4 Brazil 2

Canada 39 Sweden 4 Netherlands 2

Australia 38 New Zealand 3 Russia 1

Peoples Rep of China 9 France 3 Singapore 1

Italy 9 Norway 3 S Korea 1

Japan 5 Germany 3 Not known 2

Coverage of Games and allied issues

Summer venues Winter venues

Earlier 3 Turin 2006 2

Sydney 2000 2 Vancouver 2010 4

Athens 2004 6 Sochi 2014 2

Beijing 2008 12

London 2012 17 Youth Games 2010 2

Rio de Janeiro 2016 3

26

Special focuses

Focus Journal/Issue no of article/s

AC Ligament injuries Res in Sp Med 20,3-4 (7)

Torch Relay Sp in Society 15,5 (8)

Paralympics Qual Res in Sp Ex& Health 4,2 (7)

Olympics & peace(making) Sp in Society 15, 6 (11)

Sports tourism Sp & Tourism 16,4 (4)

J Tour Cul Change 10,2 (8)

OG unintended consequences J Pol Res in To Lei Events 4,2 (5)

Archiving Archive Records 33,1 (5)

Olympic celebrity Celebr Studies 3,3 (5)

Media coverage Mass Comm & Society 15,4 (8)

Coaching Reflective Practice 13,3 (11)

Security Jnl Roy Unit Serv Instit 75,2 (2)

Paralympics Int Jnl Dis Dev & Educ 59,3 (7)

Research Methods (where specified/derivable) (Excluding editorials)

Qualitative Quantitative

Document analysis 74 ethnography 3 experiments 5

Interviews 20 questionnaires 4* modelling 4

Focus groups 2 observation 5 C factor analysis 1

Discourse/debate 17 photographs 9 Statistical modelling 1

Semiotics 1 Literature review 6+

27

Descriptive stats 3

two by email +one claimed to be systematic

28

Appendix 2. List of participating (and now published) journals with hyperlinks to the special Olympic or Paralympic special issue

Also available here: http://explore.tandfonline.com/page/pgas/roso-olympic-special-issues.php

Special Issue: Sports, Ethics and Philosophy

Olympic Ethics and Philosophy

Volume 6, Issue 2, 2012

Special Issue: Journal of Sport & Tourism

Sport, Tourism and the Olympic Games

Volume 16, Issue 4, 2011

Special Issue: Leisure Studies

Leisure, Culture and the Olympic Games

Volume 31, Issue 3, 2012

29

Special Issue: Reflective Practice

Coaching for Performance: Realising the Olympic Dream

Volume 13, Issue 3, 2012

Special Issue: Archives and Records (formerly known as Journal of the Society of Archivists)

Community Engagement and the Olympic and Paralympic Games

Volume 33, Issue 1, 2012

Special Issue: Mass Communication and Society

Olympics, Media, and Society

Volume 15, Issue 4, 2012

Special Issue: Visual Studies

30

Olympics Special Issue

Volume 27, Issue 2, 2012

Special Issue: Journal of Policy Research in Tourism, Leisure and Events

The Unintended Policy Consequences of the Olympics and Paralympics

Volume 4, Issue 2, 2012

Special Issue: Journal of Tourism and Cultural Change

Tourism at the Olympics

Volume 10, Issue 2, 2012

Special Issue: Qualitative Research in Sport, Exercise and Health

Paralympics and Disability Sport

Volume 4, Issue 2, 2012

31

Special Issue: Sport in History

Britain, Britons and the Olympic Games

Volume 32, Issue 2, 2012

Special Issue: Educational Review

'Olympism' and Education: A Critical Review

Volume 64, Issue 3, 2012

Special Issue: Sport in Society

Bearing Light: Flame Relays and the Struggle for the Olympic Movement

Volume 15, Issue 5, 2012

32

Special Issue: Sport in Society

The Olympic Movement and the Sport of Peacemaking

Volume 15, Issue 6, 2012

Special Issue: European Sport Management Quarterly

Managing the Olympic Experience: Challenges and Responses

Volume 12, Issue 4, 2012

Special Issue: Research in Sports Medicine

ACL Injury: Incidences, Healing, Rehabilitation, and Prevention

Volume 20, Issue 3-4, 2012

Special Issue: International Journal of Disability Development and Education

The Paralympic Games

Volume 59, Issue 3, 2012

33

Special Issue: Measurement in Physical Education and Exercise Science

World Record Prediction and Human Limit in Track and Field and Swimming

Volume 16, Issue 3, 2012

Special Issue: Sports Technology

Aerodynamics in Olympic Sports

Volume 3, Issue 4, 2010

Special Issue: Celebrity Studies

The Olympics

Volume 3, Issue 3, 2012

34

Special Issue: Journal of Sports Sciences

Sports Science and the Olympics

Volume 30, Issue 11, 2012

Special Issue: City

Un-linking the rings: cities and the Olympic Games

Volume 16, Issue 4, 2012

Special Issue: The RUSI Journal

Olympic Security

Volume 157, Issue 2, 2012

35

Special Issue: International Journal of Sport Policy and Politics

Olympic and Paralympic Policy

Volume 4, Issue 3, 2012

Special Issue: Sports Technology

Paralympic Sports Technology, Published in Sports Technology

Volume 5, Issue 1-2, 2012

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