Olympic Infrastructure—Global Problems of Local Communities on the Example of Rio 2016, PyeongChang 2018, and Krakow 2023

Abstract

Every potential Olympic Games organiser assumers that the games they organise will be special, that they will help to set new, high standards both in the organisation of sports events themselves, as well as in the planning and carrying out of projects accompanying the games. Since the document entitled Agenda 21 was approved by the UN at the Earth Summit in 1992, environmental protection has become the mainstay of the discussion among the Olympic family, and the problem of sustainable planning has become one of the main features of published reports. The conclusion of the conference coincided with the Lillehammer Winter Olympics of 1994, which were praised as the first green games to be held, under the motto “White Green Games”. Four years prior, in Nagano, its organisers advertised the games with the slogan “Coexistence with nature”. London 2012, with its motto “Inspire a Generation”, highlighted the educational aspect of the events and the words “environment” and “sustainability” were on the lips of everyone everywhere in the context of every activity the organisers were undertaking. During Rio 2016, the motto was “Green Games for Blue Planet”. The goal of the article is to investigate whether these mottoes have been actually reflected in the measures taken by authorities and encompassing the period between proclaiming them as Games organisers, during the sports event itself, and during the post-Games period. The author focused on the two most recent Games (Rio 2016 and PyeongChang 2018) in order to verify whether the ambitious assumptions that filled all manners of reports have been made a reality. The diagnosis presented in the article indicates that the pursuit of satisfying the ambitions of authorities and organisers is often at odds with the precepts and concept of sustainable development. The results of the study are an essential starting point for the discussion on developing a new formula—that of the European Games, whose third edition is to be organised in Krakow in 2023, and whose respective subject matter is identical to the problems that an Olympic Games organiser must face in terms of infrastructure planning.