An LA-based company has won the contract to be the official executive producer of the opening and closing ceremonies of the 2015 Special Olympic World Games, which take place in the city next summer.

The work was awarded through a competitive bidding process on the back of FiveCurrents’ experience working on 12 Olympic Games, four Paralympic Games and nine major multi-sport events over the last 25 years.

“Having produced the Opening Ceremonies of back-to-back Olympic Games, we are looking forward to bringing the world together to celebrate another once-in-a-lifetime moment of international pride right here in our home state and country,” said Scott Givens, president of FiveCurrents.

Most recently, FiveCurrents worked on the Sochi 2014 Olympic Opening and Closing Ceremonies. They were also the production company behind Danny Boyle’s celebrated London 2012 Olympic Opening Ceremony and will also be working on the European Games in Baku next year.  

80,000 spectators are expected to attend the Opening Ceremony at the Los Angeles Memorial Coliseum on Saturday, July 25, 2015. The ceremony will be broadcast live and distributed internationally by ESPN, the Official Broadcaster of the 2015 Special Olympics World Games.

The opening ceremony will put the athletes at the centre of the celebrations, with the final leg of the “Law Enforcement Torch Run” culminating in a Parade of Athletes and the lighting of the Special Olympics cauldron. 

“We are looking forward to creating the stage that will celebrate the courage, determination and joy of our athletes,” said Patrick McClenahan, President and Chief Executive Officer of LA2015. “With the support of FiveCurrents, we will welcome the world as we cast a spotlight on acceptance and inclusion.”

The 2015 Special Olympics World Games will run from July 25nd until August 2nd. With 7,000 athletes representing 177 countries, the event can claim to be the “largest sports and humanitarian event anywhere in the world in 2015, and the single biggest event in Los Angeles since the 1984 Olympic Games.”

Los Angeles is vying against Boston, San Francisco and Washington DC to become the US Olympic Committee’s candidate for the Olympic Games in 2024, a decision on which is expected to be made early in 2015.

Rio de Janeiro staged seven 2014 World Cup matches including the final, but the spotlight will shine even more brightly on the ‘Cidade Maravilhosa’ when it hosts the Olympic Games in 2016.

Brazil had to overcome delays and doubts before staging a World Cup now destined to be remembered as more successful for the host nation off the pitch than on it.

Now Rio is under pressure after International Olympic Committee (IOC) vice-president John Coates branded its preparations the “worst ever” in April.

The city of Sugarloaf Mountain and Christ the Redeemer promises a spectacular setting but also has a reputation for traffic jams and violent crime.

So, did football’s showpiece event leave a legacy for the first Olympics in South America and what challenges remain?

Games Infrastructure

The renovated 78,838-seater Maracanã Stadium will be used for the opening and closing ceremonies of the Olympics and Paralympics and football matches, including both the men’s and women’s finals. 

The Games will take place across four venue clusters:

•The Olympic Park in Barra da Tijuca (widely known as Barra) will host around 60 per cent of events, including track cycling, boxing, tennis, basketball and swimming, and feature the broadcast and press centres. Construction work at the site has recently been extended to 24 hours per day and work on three halls hosting indoor sports only began in August. Work on athletes’ housing in the Olympic Village is more advanced – with 31 17-storey towers already standing – and should be finished by the end of 2015.

•Deodoro, the next biggest cluster, will host 11 events, including equestrian, shooting and rugby sevens, across nine venues in a poor area of Rio. Three venues used in the 2007 Pan-American Games and 2011 World Military Games just need renovations. However, work on a new arena, hockey centre, BMX centre and whitewater stadium only began in July after the IOC warned Deodoro was two years behind schedule and questioned Rio’s social legacy planning. Two temporary structures will also be created – the Rugby and Modern Pentathlon Arena and the Olympic Mountain Bike Park.

•The Maracanã cluster. As well as the football stadium, this includes the João Havelange Olympic Stadium that was built in 2007 for the Pan American Games and will host the athletics. Currently undergoing roof repairs, it is due to close again next year so the capacity can be raised from 45,000 to 60,000.

•Copacabana cluster. A temporary 12,000-seater stadium on Copacabana beach will host beach volleyball. In Flamengo Park, 3,800 spectators in temporary seating will be able to see road cycling and race walking. Nearby, Guanabara Bay will host the sailing, while a temporary 10,000-seat pontoon in Rodrigo de Freitas lagoon will ensure a great atmosphere at the rowing and canoeing finish zone.

Transport rush

While some cities benefited from several World Cup-related urban mobility projects, Rio saw only one – the Transcarioca bus rapid-transit (BRT) scheme connecting Barra to the international airport.

World Cup match ticket-holders were allowed to take the underground to the Maracanã for free and the municipal government declared public holidays for Rio’s three weekday games.

While the arrangements allowed fans to travel without problems, critics say the city came to a halt – something Rio cannot afford over 17 days of the Olympics.

“It appears from the outside that the city functioned well but it was not working as normal,” said Christopher Gaffney, a visiting professor of architecture and urbanism at the Federal University of Niteroi.

The Olympic clusters are considerable distances apart and traffic leaving Rio’s beach zones often slows to a crawl around tunnels through the mountains.

Barra is about 25km west of central Rio, the Maracanã is 13km north of Copacabana and Ipanema, while Deodoro is still more distant from tourist hotspots and hotels.

But four BRT schemes – all terminating in Barra – will help speed traffic by providing express lanes for air-conditioned, articulated buses holding 160 passengers or more.

The first 56km BRT opened in 2012 and the 39km Transcarioca began operating in June – along with a new international airport departures area – and is expected to carry 320,000 people daily and cut journey times by 60 per cent.

The 26km Transolímpica, due to open in January 2016, will link the competition centres in Barra and Deodoro and is expected to be used by 400,000 people per day. 

Finally, the 32km Transbrasil will connect Deodoro to central Rio and could benefit 900,000 passengers daily. However, Transbrasil’s tender date has been delayed and although work could begin in October, transport experts question whether it will be ready for the Games.

A new 16km underground line, a light rail transit service and revitalisation of Rio’s port will also ease congestion and benefit visitors.

The underground’s Linha 4, due to open early in 2016, will have six new stations linking Ipanema to Barra, and should carry more than 300,000 people daily.

A ride from Ipanema to Barra will take 15 minutes and central Rio to Barra will take 34 minutes.

Tough tactics

The Ministry of Justice’s Extraordinary Secretariat for the Security of Big Events (SESGE) co-ordinated arrangements for the World Cup and will do so for the Olympics too. 

Police averted the threat of large protests close to World Cup venues by establishing security perimeters 2km around the stadium.

The tactic was condemned by civil rights groups and failed to prevent nearly 100 ticketless Chile fans breaking into the Maracanã ahead of a game against Spain.

Police also used tear gas and batons against some demonstrators close to the cordon on the day of the final but the Brazilian government views World Cup security as a success given the fears of greater unrest.

In early August Defence Minister Celso Amorim met top military officials in Brasilia to discuss issues for 2016 such as intelligence, disaster prevention and event access.

Central to security planning has been the establishment of Police Pacification Units (UPPs) since 2008 in favelas previously controlled by drugs gangs. 

Around 40 UPPs are now in operation with nearly 10,000 Military Police officers. At least two helicopters will transmit real-time video to a co-ordination centre in Deodoro during the Olympics.

Dignitaries will be driven to events in a fleet of 36 armoured police sports utility vehicles with sirens and GPS systems.

The threat of terrorism is considered low and there are no signs that major political protests are likely, but the security demands for the Olympics are still far greater than on any World Cup city.

World Cup final day saw a record 25,787 security personnel deployed on Rio’s streets but Andrei Rodrigues, special secretary for security and safety at major events, says “several times” that figure will be called upon during the Olympics.

This article was written by Robin Yapp, HOST CITY’s reporter in Brazil, and was first published in the Autumn issue of HOST CITY magazine

A day ahead of schedule, members of the International Olympic Committee approved all 40 Olympic Agenda 2020 recommendations at the 127th IOC Session in Monaco on Monday. 

96 of the IOC’s full membership of 104 were in attendance to vote on the recommendations. IOC president Bach, who instigated Olympic Agenda 2020 shortly after taking to the helm in 2013, praised the members in approving this “strategic roadmap for the Olympic movement”.

Two days had been allowed for the approval process, but all recommendations were approved on Monday, with no votes against and no abstentions. At the close of Monday’s meeting, members gave their unanimous support for the entire set of recommendations in an “en bloc” vote.

“The speed at which Olympic Agenda 2020 was approved showed the great support and determination of the members to make it happen”, president Bach said at a press conference. “It was a very, very positive surprise. But it followed over a year of constructive discussions.”

The changes that will now be put into action include allowing multi-host Games, lowering the cost of bidding for the Games, an age limit on IOC membership and the launch of an Olympic TV channel. Host City contracts will also be made public and will now include clauses on worker’s rights, environmental protection and discrimination on sexuality.

Limiting the age of IOC membership to 70 will have an impact on a number of IOC members. FIFA president Sepp Blatter, for instance, will now have to relinquish his IOC membership in two years’ time.

“Some of the recommendations were not easy for certain members to swallow. Some may have hoped for no recommendation or a different recommendation on a specific issue,” said Bach.

“So it was encouraging that regardless of their individual interests or positions, they were determined to make Olympic Agenda 2020 a success. Speaking of the members, I have a great deal of respect for them to do this.”

The first recommendation approved relates to reducing the cost and boosting the appeal of bidding. Future bids will now be able to incorporate venues in more than one city and potentially than one country. 

This would enable countries with suitable venues in more than one city to avoid investing heavily in new sports infrastructure, which is often met with large-scale public opposition.

The changes were also greeted with approval from a contender for the 2022 Olympic Games. 

“Since the start of the 2022 Bid process, the Beijing 2022 Bid Committee has been paying close attention to all developments related to the Olympic Agenda 2020 and strongly supports all its recommendations,” said Madame Wang Hui, spokesperson for Beijing’s bid for the 2022 Winter Olympic Games. 

“We highly appreciate the IOC’s approach and will work to implement these reforms.”

The Supreme Committee for Delivery & Legacy – the organisation in charge of building and kitting out venues for the 2022 FIFA World Cup – has has signed a contract with Qatar Mobility Innovations Center (QMIC) to adopt its Hawa’ak air quality monitoring system.

QMIC has fully developed Hawa’ak to monitor air quality, weather, climate and other environmental conditions in real time. Using an “Internet of Things” platform, it allows users to access this information via multiple channels including mobile delivery, and web portals.

Hawa’ak takes advantage of a new generation of mobile sensor stations that can be distributed across a wide area to deliver localised and personalised air quality information.

“We believe that carefully monitoring environment and air quality conditions is a critical part of building and maintaining proposed host venues for the 2022 FIFA World Cup in Qatar,” said Yasir Al Jamal, acting assistant secretary general for delivery affairs at the Supreme Committee. 

“We are very pleased to have selected the Hawa’ak system from QMIC to furnish our stadiums with weather & air quality monitoring stations.”

The Supreme Committee is keen to use the World Cup as an opportunity to develop a range of industries within the host nation. In addition to delivering sports infrastructure, the Supreme Committee aims to boost the development of Qatar’s private sector and streamline regulations.

“We believe that utilizing innovative technologies and systems that are developed in Qatar will help in creating sustainable new industries, which support our strategy of creating a legacy in the country,” said Al Jamal. 

The collected, processed and refined weather and air quality information will be accessible to the Supreme Committee and its subsidiaries through a range of channels such as web portals, mobile applications, hard copy reports, and alerts among others.

The Supreme Committee says this information will contribute to building a rich bank of data that will drive the creation of new services and applications optimised for enterprises, government agencies and consumers.

“We would like to thank the Supreme Committee for Delivery & Legacy for putting their trust in us,” said Dr. Adnan Abu-Dayya, executive director of QMIC. “All along, QMIC has focused on developing and deploying intelligent systems and services to support the needs of important market segments in Qatar including environment, transportation, and road safety. Our strategic partnership with SC will help us scale up our plans and achieve our goals faster in the field of environment.”

The organisers of the Qatar 2022 World Cup, unveiled the latest stadium design today, with details of the cooling technologies described by lead architect Mark Fenwick as a “challenge” to incorporate. 

The Qatar Foundation Stadium is the fourth stadium design to be revealed by the Supreme Committee for Delivery & Legacy, who announced the plans on the anniversary of Qatar winning the right to host the 2022 FIFA World Cup. 

The venue, based in Education City on the outskirts of Doha, will be combined with a Health and Wellness Precinct and educational programmes.

“Designing the Qatar Foundation Stadium was a unique challenge as it incorporates the innovative cooling technologies being developed by the Supreme Committee for Delivery & Legacy,” said Mark Fenwick, lead architect for RFA Fenwick Iribarren Architects.

According to the Supreme Committee, the design will create a comfortable environment for football. “Pitch and spectator terraces are cooled to the target temperatures; the players’ and spectators’ comfort levels will meet and exceed FIFA requirements and guidelines for safe play and spectating.”

The stadium is to be cooled using chilled water from the local air conditioning network combined with an innovative roof design. 

The opening in the stadium roof is designed as a cavity, to act as a wind break and slow down the movement of hot air outside the roof. This process is passive and consumes no energy, helping to reduce the building’s overall energy consumption by reducing the amount of cool conditioned air escaping. 

The active cooling system used by the stadium will take in chilled water from Education City’s existing district cooling network. 

The high energy consumption of air conditioning will be further offset by photovoltaic and reflective technologies to produce energy for electricity and hot water. Photovoltaic and solar thermal panels are proposed to power the stadium, swimming pool and indoor pavilion.

According to the Supreme Committee, photovoltaic and solar thermal panels could be placed on the stadium roof.

The developers are aiming for a Gold Sustainability Building Certification in the US Building Council’s Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design (LEED) ratings system.

To attain this, at least 20 per cent of all materials used is proposed to come from sustainable sources. 50 per cent of all wood-based materials are to be procured from sustainable forestry sources, while 20 per cent of all materials are to be sourced regionally in a bid to reduce the carbon footprint of logistics.

The construction is being managed by Qatar Foundation’s Capital Projects Directorate, which is setting its own standards in workers’ welfare, based on the Supreme Committee’s recommendations. 

“With the exception of the early works contractor, who was awarded prior to the release of the QF Mandatory Standards of Migrant Workers’ Welfare (QF Standards), all contractors and sub-contractors working on this project will be contractually required to comply with the QF Standards,” says the Supreme Committee.

“Both sets of standards—which are based on Qatari labour law and international best practices—establish minimum requirements that protect the rights of workers from recruitment to repatriation. 

“The SC and QF Standards are very similar and only differ in terms of the accommodation specifications.”

The stadium is scheduled for completion in 2018 with a capacity of 40,000 seats to host matches up to and including the quarter-final stage of the World Cup in 2022. The stadium will be reconfigured to 15,000 seats after the World Cup. 

The members-only Health & Wellness Precinct will incorporate medical clinics and sports facilities, football pitches, gymnasiums, tennis courts and facilities for non-traditional sports such as climbing as well healthy restaurants and cafes. 

“Through innovative design, sustainably-sourced materials and the latest cooling and energy-efficient technology, the Qatar Foundation Stadium and Health & Wellness Precinct will not only allow us to host an amazing FIFA World Cup but also leave a genuine legacy in Qatar well beyond 2022,” said Ghanim Al Kuwari, Competition Venues Director at the Supreme Committee. 

This year’s Glasgow Commonwealth Games was on the receiving end of widespread praise from athletes, the media and sports administrators alike, with Commonwealth Games Federation chief executive Mike Hooper even hailing it as “the standout Games in the history of the movement.”

71 teams and nearly 5,000 athletes took part in the Games, which was held across 13 venues. The Games went off smoothly and was heralded as a success with large attendances at every event and 1.2 million tickets sold.

Vice Chair of the Glasgow 2014 Organising Committee, Louise Martin, has been a part of Glasgow 2014 from the very beginning. She was the first woman to be Chair of Commonwealth Games Scotland (CGS) and was awarded the CBE in 2003 for services to the Games.

“It feels absolutely fantastic and to see the fruition from the idea, to the bid, to winning the bid, to where we are now, it’s the journey that we planned meticulously and it’s worked,” she told HOST CITY in Glasgow.

“From the bid phase, which we launched in 2004, to actual delivery, in that time we managed to make sure that every single venue was finished two years prior to today. So in 2012 all our venues were finished, operational and had been used by the general public. So that in itself, to me, is worth its weight in gold.”

The Commonwealth Games has been struggling to attract potential host cities in recent years, with the Commonwealth Games Federation (CGF) calling an emergency meeting in Kuala Lumpur in January as no member country had entered a bid for the 2022 Games just two months prior to the deadline. The extensive list of controversies surrounding the 2010 Delhi Games and the huge cost involved with hosting a Games have been some of the reasons cited for the lack of interest, especially considering the Commonwealth includes some of world’s least economically developed nations.

However, Martin is overwhelmingly positive about the event and believes the way in which Glasgow has been successfully delivered can provide a lesson for future Games and may encourage more nations to become involved with hosting. “One of the reasons we bid for this is that we’re a small country, five million people and we wanted to demonstrate that small countries can host these things and stay in budget,” she says.

“We delivered a phenomenal opening ceremony and we were on budget, really on the target, and it wasn’t over the top. We didn’t have all the stuff flying around the sky; we kept it culturally towards what we are, this fun-loving, cheeky nation. The athletes enjoyed the ceremony, they were central to the whole thing and this is what we wanted to do the whole way through.”

This year’s Games has been almost universally praised and Martin believes this have been down to a mixture of Glasgow’s welcoming atmosphere and the work done by the organising committee to create a slickly run Games with the best facilities. She says: “I just think because it’s in Scotland, it’s the friendly Games and the family Games, we all speak the same language so therefore there are no hidden feelings, where we see people we see friends, we’re all one big happy family.

“The way these 15,000 Clyde-siders have been working and the way the Glasgow public and Scottish public have just taken this to heart as well. It’s a combination of facilities being ready, the people in Glasgow, the workforce: it’s one big jigsaw and its come together.”

The next Commonwealth Games will be held in Gold Coast City, Australia in 2018 whilst the 2022 edition of the Games will be hosted either by the South African city of Durban or the Canadian city of Edmonton. With the announcement of the winning bid less than a year away, both cities have been upping the ante in order to secure the Games.

“My advice would be, know what you want to do, know what you want to deliver, ensure that your plans are absolutely in place and your budget is set before you put your bid in – because once you’ve got your bidding document, it makes it easy in the transition from bidding to the organising committee and then you can start to move and do it very quickly,” says Martin.

Shortly before the start of the Glasgow Games, teams from Durban and Edmonton visited the city to present at the Commonwealth Games Federation General Assembly. Durban put on an in-depth presentation, utilising government ministers and videos referencing the late Nelson Mandela whilst Edmonton took the approach of a simple address by the bid chairman. Edmonton’s lack of presentation led some sections of the media pronouncing Durban as the more serious bid but Martin disagrees.

“Whether they are bullish or not you’ll have to wait and see, it’s what they actually put down on paper and what they actually can produce for the evaluation commission that counts. The city that will be chosen will be the one that can deliver a really, really good Games to the standard that we’re looking for and as far as I’m concerned the standard that’s here: it’s simple, it’s enjoyable, it’s affordable and it’s doable.”

Glasgow 2014 has also made a fine example of how to maximise the host nation’s sporting performance on home soil, an important factor for many host cities. Scotland achieved a record 19 gold medals in Glasgow, placing them fourth on the medals table.

“We’ve left nothing to chance,” says Martin. “We’ve been working with these athletes for the last five years, with all the coaches and all the scientists behind them and each individual athlete has had a special programme, nothing has been left to chance. So the delivery of Team Scotland at the moment has been planned and we have actually achieved what we’ve set out to achieve.”

Organisers of the Baku 2015 European Games updated leaders of Europe’s 49 national Olympic Committees at the weekend, met by an overwhelmingly positive reaction to the standard of their preparations.

“I am deeply impressed to see the development here in regard to sport,” said IOC president Thomas Bach, who was also attending the EOC General Assembly in Baku.

“What I have seen and heard about the preparations for the Baku 2015 European Games makes me very confident they will be an outstanding success for European sport and also an outstanding success for Azerbaijan.”

The optimism surrounding Baku 2015 will come as a great relief to the Olympic Movement, coming at a time when the next Olympic Games, Rio 2016, is under intense scrutiny over its delayed preparations and when European cities have been turning away from bidding to host the 2022 Winter Olympic Games.

The NOC presidents and secretary generals were taken on a tour of the key venues including the National Stadium, the National Gymnastics Arena and the Baku Aquatics Centre. 

“I am very impressed at what they have achieved in Baku and the new sports infrastructure is excellent,” said Uğur Erdener, president of the Turkish Olympic Committee.

“The conditions will be perfect for elite performances, I am sure: great venues, great accommodation and transport, and great organisation,” said French Olympic Committee president Denis Masseglia. 

“The stadia here are stunning and the facilities for athletes in the Village and around the city are of the highest level,” said Victor Sanchez, Spanish Olympic Committee secretary general.

More than 6,000 athletes from across Europe will compete in 20 sports at Baku 2015. The programme includes 16 Olympic sports, 11 of which will offer qualification opportunities for Rio 2016.

“After seeing the venues and meeting the organisers this week, I am more convinced than ever that Baku 2015 will be an important stage on our road to Rio 2016,” said Russian Olympic Committee president Alexander Zhukov.

Hosted right on the border of Europe and Asia, the European Games is set to be the biggest multi-sport event on the European calendar in 2015 and beyond. 

“I think Baku 2015 will be one of the surprise events of next year... They will be a breath of fresh air for European sport, said Vlade Divac, president of the Olympic Committee of Serbia. 

“The Organising Committee of Baku 2015 has considered every part of their hosting concept from an athlete and NOC perspective and that is really reassuring for me and my team.”

With the 2016, 2018, 2020 and 2022 Olympic Games all set to take place outside Europe, the prospect of a regular multi-sport event in Europe will be reassuring to European Olympic leaders. “I believe in the future of the European Games,” said Russian Olympic Committee president Alexander Zhukov.

The host city of the 2019 European Games is being determined through a process of dialogue between the European Olympic Committees (EOC) and a number of potential host cities and will be announced at an EOC Assembly in the Turkish resort of Belek in May 2015.

Cities are often seen as the problem rather than the solution when it comes to pollution – particularly in the rapidly developing world. But according to the mayor of Lima, which hosts global climate negotiations next week, cities are where global environmental challenges can be best tackled.

“The challenge of supporting economic growth and tackling climate change will be met in the world’s cities,” said Susana Villarán, mayor of Lima, speaking on the publication of five studies by the Global Commission on the Economy and Climate ahead of the Global Climate Change Conference in Lima.

Lima, one of the fastest growing cities in Latin America with more than seven million inhabitants, is the focus on one of these studies. The city faces substantial increases in energy bills and more greenhouse gas emissions unless action is taken.

The research conducted for the Global Commission shows that, through effective investments in transport, Lima can reduce its carbon emissions by 15 per cent by 2025 while saving citizens US$1.1bn per annum in energy bills. These investments could be paid back in less than three years, building on the improvements already implemented in the city. 

“Investing in public transport is good for citizens, good for business and good for the climate,” said Villarán. “This study shows that it is in the economic interest of the city and of its people to build better. Clear leadership is now needed to make this vision a reality.”

Lima is just one of many cities that can use transport upgrades to make a massive change to the world’s climate. According to the Global Commission on the Economy and Climate, better, more efficient transport systems could enable the world’s 724 largest cities to reduce greenhouse gas emissions by up to 1.4 billion tonnes of CO2 a year – greater than the annual emissions of Japan.

Deploying low carbon technologies, such as new building technologies and electric buses, across 30 megacities could create more than 2 million jobs, while avoiding 3 billion tonnes of cumulative greenhouse gas emissions, the Commission says.

Lima is hosting the Pan American Games in 2019, an international mega event that can act as a catalyst for the host city to invest in sustainable urban development. 

The Global Commission also cited the World Cup host city of Curitiba in Brazil, which has accommodated a threefold increase in population since the 1960s while achieving per capita greenhouse gas emissions 25 per cent lower and gasoline consumption 30 per cent lower than the national average. 

“Over the next two decades, cities will grow by over a billion people and generate two thirds of global economic growth,” said Graham Floater of LSE Cities at the London School of Economics and director of the Global Commission’s cities research. 

“If this rapid urban growth is managed badly, we face a world of sprawling, inefficient, polluted cities – and a major climate change risk. But a new breed of cities is emerging with compact, connected development – innovative cities that are more productive, attractive and low carbon.”

The Global Commission highlighted Stockholm for its leadership in reducing emissions by 35% from 1993 to 2010 while its economy grew by 41 per cent. In London, car ownership decreased 6 per cent from 1995 to 2011 as while the city’s economy grew by 40 per cent.

"Mayors and policy-makers adopting low-carbon strategies are making their cities more liveable and more attractive to talent and entrepreneurs, said Ani Dasgupta of the World Resources Institute Ross Center for Sustainable Cities. “The economy and the environment of urban cities go hand-in-hand in creating growth."

The drop-out of several European cities bidding for the 2022 Olympic Games has created “shockwaves”, but IOC reforms and stronger communication from cities will enable them build the public support needed to bid for future Games.

This is the view of Mike Lee, chairman of Vero, who led on the communications strategies for Rio 2016 and London 2012.

“The race for 2022 has sent a few shockwaves around the Olympic movement, so it’s good that the IOC have already been thinking about this for a while under President Bach,” Lee told HOST CITY. 

A lack of public support led the European cities of Stockholm, Munich, Krakow and Oslo to withdraw from bidding for the 2022 Winter Games. The perceived cost of hosting, at a time when Sochi was investing billions in hosting the 2014 Winter Games, was a major factor in suppressing public appetite for hosting the Games. 

The Olympic Agenda 2020 reforms set in motion by IOC president Thomas Bach are addressing this issue in a number of ways. “A number of the reforms that are being proposed for the bidding process and the way that cities engage with the IOC are all good news,” said Lee.

One important recommendation is the possibility of regional bids, which would allow existing venues in different cities to feature in bids. “There’s definitely going to be a lot more dialogue and flexibility – tailoring, if you wish, the way in which a bid is constructed.”

While these changes from the rights holder are clearly a positive step, city governors will also have a major role to play in building public support for bids.

“You will still need to have support from the relevant levels of government. The lessons from all the recent cycle of bidding is that that remains central. The way you have democratic scrutiny and, in some cases, all the requirements of a referendum – it’s a reminder that you need to build public support.”

The two cities left in the race for 2022 – Beijing and Almaty – do not have a tradition of public referendums. Some observers fear that democratic nations might remain disadvantaged in future bidding cycles.

“This issue of public opinion and political support go hand in hand and you’ve got to pay a lot of attention to it. It’s clearly solvable; otherwise you’d never see bids emerging from democratic countries.”

The timing of polls needs to be considered carefully. “Ideally you want to be able to test public opinion after you’ve had some sort of campaign, because if you have a cold test, don’t be surprised if you have a negative result.

“The London bid would be a very good example. If were depending on the poll in the early days of the London bid, London would never have progressed. It took some time to build the campaign and in the end the polling figures for London were very good, and the national joy came with London winning in Singapore.” 

Warning Signals

Rights holders of major events can expect to see a larger number of applicant cities emerging from this bearish period. “It would be wrong to judge the state of the appetite for major events just from the Olympic bidding process for 2022,” says Lee.

“Most mega events do have multiple bidders – people can’t be looking at the willingness of cities to host purely through the prism of the 2022 Winter Games race, because that is a bit of a one-off. But it’s sent off some warning signals and Agenda 2020, from an Olympic perspective, is all a part of responding to that.”

HOST CITY: How are preparations going in terms of the stadiums?

Alexei Sorokin: We’re had two ready for some time, Kazan and Sochi, and of course now we have Moscow Spartak which opened officially and the end of August and then staged its first game shortly afterwards. In the beginning of 2016 the St Petersburg stadium will also be ready. The rest are in different phases of construction.

HOST CITY: Can you tell us about opportunities for international contractors?

Alexei Sorokin: Foreign expertise was used in the design preparations. In some instances there has been a lot of consultancy from companies like Populous (England) and gmp (Germany). There is not a single stadium without some kind of foreign element. 

The way we went about choosing was by public tender put out by the specific region. Different companies are being used for different aspects of design, so maybe one company for security, another for usability and so on.

HOST CITY: What about venue sustainability? How will you ensure legacy use for such large venues?

Alexei Sorokin: We don’t think the stadiums are that large. If you consider the population of the country, they are not overwhelmingly large. In some cases they will have demountable tribunes, in others they will stay at 45,000 seats, but the level of interest in football is enough to fill them to 80 per cent if not 100 per cent all the time. 

We have strong assurances from the regional authorities that the need for such stadiums is there. The interest in football is of course not equal everywhere you go but that’s normal. There will be no white elephants for sure. 

We’ve taken a lot of advice and the stadiums will all be designed in such a way that they are marketable for events other than football. If you look at Kazan, for instance, it will host aquatics in 2016. Every design has taken this concept into account. But we deliberately picked cities where clubs are playing in our Premier League, or at least are close to doing so. Several clubs in Russia jump back and forth. We have picked cities where people really go to watch football.

HOST CITY: But are they cities that can also attract the kind of non-footballing commercial entities?

Alexei Sorokin: The short answer is absolutely. Why do I say that? Because all but two of our cities have a population in excess of one million. There is a major need for a certain level of social life. They need a venue where people can get together.

HOST CITY: What will make 2018 stand out from other World Cups?

Alexei Sorokin: We hope to show a new country and the transition we have made in the last two decades; and to show how diverse Russia really is. We may be united by the same language but the regions are very different. 

We certainly hope we can attract people to other regions than just the host cities because they are no less interesting. Some regions are dominated by religious culture or very historic. It will certainly be a discovery.

HOST CITY: Russia’s latest mega event was Sochi, but there was a lot of negative media surrounding so-called “anti-gay” laws. How do plan to avoid such adverse publicity?

Alexei Sorokin:  I wouldn’t call it an anti-gay law. It’s a law against propaganda over homosexuality amongst children. I recommend to everyone to read the contents of the law and try to understand it before twisting its nature which is what many have largely done.

HOST CITY: Ever since you launched the bid, Russian football has been unable to eradicate racism. How harmful is this?

Alexei Sorokin:  I would acknowledge that we have certain incidents and outbreaks of racism but not a dominating tendency. Many other countries also have incidents. I’m not saying that as a justification because it’s bad wherever it happens. 

Our position is very strong. It’s part of our communication strategy, but it is not an overwhelming part of what we are doing in terms of organising the World Cup. But don’t get me wrong: it’s a very important subject to us and we are in constant discussions with the Russian Football Union, coming up with certain measures. We must make it unpopular and indecent to be involved in something like this.

HOST CITY: What are the most important observations you took away from Brazil?

Alexei Sorokin: It mostly lies in the field of atmosphere. The biggest impression for me was the atmosphere they managed to generate. You can’t just manufacture that as an organiser. It has to be natural. 

The passion for the game was one of the true sentiments we brought back. We’ll struggle to match that, but every World Cup is different. We’d be wrong to try and copy them. Sometimes copying can be valid in terms of certain organisational patterns but in terms of overall climate, it has to be very distinct from all others.

HOST CITY: Is travelling an issue for you like it was in Brazil?

Alexei Sorokin: I truly don’t think so. You only spend a maximum two hours travelling from Moscow to the farthest venue away. I don’t think it’s that bad.

HOST CITY: What about the scale of the budget which caused such a backlash in Brazil?

Alexei Sorokin: We need to discern between what is spent on development of the various regions and the budget that is spent towards the event itself. In terms of the World Cup, the event budget is within appropriate limits. All the rest of it is about infrastructural development programmes which would have been spent anyway. 

I won’t comment on what happened in Brazil but maybe it wasn’t explained enough, which we will try to do. These are investments into the lives of people including things like bringing hospitals that are close to stadiums up to certain standard. The World Cup will use them for a month but the people will use them for years thereafter.

HOST CITY: Everybody knows how tense the relationship is between Russia and the rest of the world right now. What impact could this have on your security plans and the perception of 2018?

Alexei Sorokin: Political situations tend to change. I don’t think it has any impact on our security because it’s always been a priority anyway. The World Cup is perhaps one of the ways of changing certain perceptions. That’s partly why our country decided to go for this. We are occasionally victims of old perceptions. Remember Euro 2012? There were some pretty negative perceptions beforehand but it went off well. The same applied to the Sochi winter Olympics. I wouldn’t spend much time thinking about perceptions.

HOST CITY: Finally, you currently have politicians everywhere calling for sanctions – and even a World Cup boycott - because of the situation in Ukraine. What’s your reaction?

Alexei Sorokin: Honestly the last thing I would do is comment on private opinions. It does not impact our work. Various people may have their opinions about where the World Cup should take place but it’s their opinion. If we paid too much attention to this it would be hard to organise the tournament.

Our focus is the World Cup. It will remain that way for another four years. We don’t feel any threat. We are organising the tournament together with FIFA. We need to keep the principle that was declared many years ago, that sport should be beyond politics.

This article first appeared in the Autumn issue of HOST CITY magazine. Register here.