Resources

There is a vast amount of readily available documentation of the Olympics’ extensive history of DISPLACEMENT, MILITARIZATION, and EXPLOITATION. Here are some of the highlights, broken down by category. Please also check out the NOlympics Syllabus and our blog for more readings.

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LA 2024 / 2028

“There is a clash of democracy and Olympic exigency at work here,” Boykoff says of the City Council’s hurried vote yesterday. “The Los Angeles bid committee is rushing along like a greyhound chasing a mechanical rabbit, going right along with the IOC’s timeline.” (LA Weekly)

LA 1984

Read our comprehensive analysis of the LA 84 Olympics here.

“As the games approached, mounted police and narcotics officers launched sweeps of homeless residents in Downtown neighborhoods where tourists were expected to gather, the LA Times reported. Dozens of homeless residents were arrested, sent to detox centers, or forced to relocate while their belongings were discarded.” (Curbed)

LA 1932

SoFi Stadium, Clippers Arena, & Inglewood Displacement

Housing in LA

“#HomesNotHotels advocates fear this city-endorsed development will increase in the buildup to the 2028 Olympics, as officials scramble to expand the region’s tourism infrastructure. They say this would result not just in more hotel conversions, but also in gentrification, and the increased criminalization of homelessness in the surrounding areas.” (LA Magazine)

Homelessness in LA

Sanctuary, Deportation, and Immigrant Rights in LA

Police Militarization, Surveillance, and Violence in LA

“California’s gang database, CalGang, contains anywhere from 90,000 to 150,000 names, many belonging to people who aren’t gang members at all… People labeled as gang members face harsher sentencing guidelines in criminal trials and can be subjected to gang injunctions, which are basically restraining orders that make otherwise legal activities — walking down a certain street, wearing certain colors, interacting with certain people — illegal and subject to criminal prosecution.” (Intelligencer)

Eric Garcetti’s Legacy

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The Transnational Anti-Olympics Movement

“Until the corrupt forces that drive these parasitic events relinquish control, we oppose the Olympic Games in any and all locations.” (NOlympics Anywhere statement)

Tokyo 2020

Read the NOlympics Guide to Tokyo 2020 here.

“Tens of thousands still haven’t recovered in Fukushima, displaced by nuclear radiation and unable to return to deserted places like Futaba. “This recovery Olympics is in name only,” Toshihide Yoshida told The Associated Press. He was forced to abandon Futaba and ended up living near Tokyo. “The amount of money spent on the Olympics should have been used for real reconstruction.”” (NBC/AP)

Beijing 2022

Paris 2024

“Paris Councillor Danielle Simonnet has called for a referendum on whether the 2024 Olympic and Paralympic Games should be held in the French capital after a recent survey found that 62 per cent of 6,612 voters claimed they are in favour of them being cancelled.” (InsideTheGames)

Milan-Cortina d’Ampezzo 2026

Calgary 2026 Bid

Denver 1976 Bid

“It soon became clear the so-called “economical Games” were also part of the “little lie” necessary to win the bid. Organizers managed to put forth a referendum on the 1972 ballot – organisers for Boston’s 2024 Olympic bid are trying something similar – which would amend the state’s constitution to specifically prohibit the state from levying taxes or appropriating funds to aid the staging of the Denver Games… Coloradans overwhelming supported the constitutional amendment, effectively rejecting the Games, as a United Press International report stated the measure passed by over 1.5 to 1.” (The Guardian)

Denver 2026/2030 Bid

Vancouver 2030 Bid

Salt Lake City 2030 Bid

Boston 2024 Bid

““Put all of it together and you start to see a real rejection by places where people have a voice,” said Victor Matheson, a sports economist whose research has shown that Olympics have few tangible economic benefits for the places that host them. “Cities are wising up.”” (HuffPost)

Chicago 2016 Bid

Pyeongchang 2018

“Amid cheering crowds and newly minted Olympic champions, the Winter Games have left Jong and his fellow ski shop owners facing financial ruin after the local slopes were taken over for the competition.” (The Guardian)

Rio 2016

Sochi 2014

“The run-up to the Games has been marred by abuses against Sochi residents and migrant workers toiling on Olympic construction, and by the adoption of a discriminatory antigay law.” (Human Rights Watch)

London 2012

Vancouver 2010

“If the cost is increasing the marginalization of people who are already marginalized within cities, leaving cities and governments at all levels hugely in debt, affecting the long-term success of the population because of the lack of social services because they’re trying to pay off the debt of these Games — is it worth it?” (CBC)

Beijing 2008

Athens 2004

Salt Lake City 2002

“In a declaration filed in discovery in the case in U.S. district court in Utah, Drake asserted the NSA, in coordination with the FBI, scooped up and stored the content of emails and text messages sent and received by anyone in the city and Olympic venues – including American citizens.” (Chicago Tribune)

Sydney 2000

Atlanta 1996

Barcelona 1992

“A similar trend is found in the 1992 Barcelona Olympics in which the COHRE study found that, in addition to the 2,500 evictions, housing prices rose 139% for sale and 145% for rentals in the period from 1986, the year it was selected to 1993. The same period saw a 76% decrease in public housing availability. In addition, the areas surrounding the Olympic Village site witnessed the displacement of over 90% of its Roma population.” (Ceasefire Magazine)

Seoul 1988

World Cup 2026 Bid

Amazon HQ2 Project

““This is a new day in New York City politics,” said Sasha Wijeyeratne, executive director of Caaav : Organizing Asian Communities.“They sauntered in here and said HQ2 was inevitable,” she said. “Queens and New York City rose up, and we proved Amazon wrong.”” (The Guardian)

Covid and The Olympics

The IOC’s Extensive History of Corruption and Scandals

“IOC members shall be greeted with a smile when arriving at their hotel.” (IOC demand as reported by Slate)

IOC Patterns of Displacement and Militarization

“Rio de Janeiro’s preparations for next year’s Olympic Games were marred on Wednesday by a bloody confrontation between police and residents who resisted attempts to forcibly remove them from their homes near the stadium construction site…“They came with bulldozers and fired rubber bullets at the residents as well as percussion grenades,” said the head of the Vila Autódromo association, Altair Guimarães. “I was hit with a baton by the municipal guard.”” (The Guardian)

The Olympics & Sexual Abuse, Labor Abuse

The Olympics & Fascism, Nationalism, Authoritarianism

“The IOC’s brand of apoliticism is, in fact, deeply political — the IOC needs a walk-in closet for all of its political skeletons. It staged the 1936 Summer Olympics in Berlin with full awareness that Adolf Hitler and the Nazis were gaining power and using the Games against Jewish people by instituting an “Aryans-only” policy within German sports organizations. It allowed an all-white apartheid South African team to compete until it grudgingly banned the country in the 1960s in the face of worldwide pressure. For two decades, the IOC’s president was Juan Antonio Samaranch, an unrepentant functionary for the Franco regime in Spain.” (NBC News)

The Olympics & Capitalism

Depression of Tourism Income

“There is little evidence that tourism increases during the Games. Rather, Olympic tourists replace normal tourists who want to stay away to avoid the congestion and greater expense during the Games.” (The Atlantic)