Olympic Environmental Concerns as a Legacy of the Winter Games

Abstract

The Olympic Winter Games are partly held in mountain resorts and are thus closer to nature, a fact that has frequently led them to encounter strong opposition from environmental organizations. This paper recalls these episodes and explores how the ideas of environmental protection and sustainable development have been slowly incorporated in the Olympic rhetoric. It shows how a set of environmental principles developed through the experiences of local organizers at most Winter Games since the 1970s, and how the International Olympic Committee adopted them in the 1990s and incorporated them in the Olympic ideal. The article also explains why Olympic environmental concerns can be considered as one of the major non-material legacies that the winter games have bequeathed to the Olympic movement.