The Olympics, Risk and Governance * Will Jennings, ESRC Research Fellow, University of Manchester,

will.jennings@manchester.ac.uk

Acknowledgements: thanks to the UK Economic and Social Research Council for support

through the ESRC Research Fellowship (ESRC Reference RES-063-27-0205), ‘Going for Gold:

The Olympics, Risk and Risk Management’.

Abstract

This paper explores the increasing influence of risk in governance of the Olympic

Games. It identifies three critical aspects of the relationship between risk and the Olympics:

first as a prism of organisational experience of the risk society, second in the contradiction

between the disproportionate risks associated with mega-events such as the Olympics and

wider controlling, blame-avoiding and risk-averse rationalities prevalent in contemporary

politics, government and organisational life, and third in the increased influence of risk as a

mobilizing concept in planning and organisation of the Games and in the governance of the

Olympic movement. This relates wider debates about risk and modernity (e.g. Beck 1992;

Giddens 1999), mega-projects and mega-events (e.g. Roche 1994; Flyvbjerg et al. 2003) and

the rise of risk management in the public and private spheres (e.g. Hood et al. 2001; Power

2004; 2007) to the Olympic experience of risk and changes over time in organising strategies

used to manage and mitigate risks. It considers in particular the implications for the London

2012 Olympic and Paralympic Games as a venue for interaction of risk, society, politics and

organisation.

“Great Games minimise risk.” (London 2012 Candidate File, p.11)

The Olympics is both a mirror to and an engine of broader social, political and economic

forces. It is neither a unique and insulated venue for organisational practice, cut off from the

external world, nor is it powerless in the face of broader changes in society, economics and

government. The task of governing the Games and the Olympic movement now occurs in an

age in which states and societies are increasingly organized in response to risks, and where

uncertainties, threats, hazards and vulnerabilities are said to be a product of modernization

itself (Beck 1992). This is a world in which concern with the creation of economic wealth has

been overtaken by the production of risk along with a reciprocal quest for safety and

security (Giddens 1991). The managerial expansion of the capacities of states and societies

for measurement, analysis and management of risk is manifested in growth of the regulatory

state (e.g. Majone 1994; Moran 2003) as well as the proliferation of audit and risk

management practices in both the public and private sectors (Hood et al. 1999; Power 1997;

2004; 2007). As a global media mega-event the Olympics is susceptible to heightened

anticipation of risks and threats and activation of special legal or institutional frameworks for

governing and securing the Games (e.g. Richards et al. 2010). It is, therefore, a context in

which broader dynamics of risk and risk management are of special relevance (e.g. Jennings

2008; 2010; Jennings and Lodge 2010; 2011).

The influence of risk and of risk management in Olympic organisation is a defining

feature of the modern Games. This paper argues that the relationship between Olympic

organisation and risk should be understood with regard to three essential dynamics. These

affect the production of risk in Olympic organisation and events, specific decision-making

biases and processes that are observed in planning for this mega-event and the increasing

commitment of organizers to the practice of risk assessment and risk management. First, the

social and technological production of risk in Olympic organisation has – since revival of the

Olympic Games in 1896 – reflected broader social processes of modernisation identified by

Giddens (1991; 1999), Beck (1992) and others (e.g. Scott 1998). At the same time the global

profile and salience of the Games has led this particular mega-event – through defining and

memorable events such as the 1972 Munich Massacre – to wider cognisance of hazards and

threats encountered in modernity, as well as contributing to the production of risk through

its geo-political salience and global brand and through the Olympic movement’s globalizing,

modernizing and commercial tendencies.

Second, the disproportionate level of risk that is associated with organisation of the

Olympic Games – as a mega-event, constituted in operation of a large scale event operation

that typically involves a complex web of multiple mega-projects concerning infrastructure

and facilities – are in contradiction to the aspirations of modern societies, governments and

businesses to measure, control, regulate and minimize risk (Moran 2001, p. 425). Third, and

last, contemporary trends in organisation of the Olympic Games reflect broader shifts in

governance observed in both the public and private sectors (across corporate governance

and public administration), with increasing attention to risk and its management.

This paper reflects briefly on these dynamics in light of the case of the London 2012

Olympic and Paralympic Games as the most recent Olympic venue for interaction between

risk, society, and organisation. It relates wider debates about risk and society (e.g. Douglas

and Wildavsky 1982; Beck 1992; Douglas 1994; Giddens 1999), mega-projects and mega-

events (e.g. Roche 1994; Flyvbjerg et al. 2003) and the rise of risk management in the public

and private sectors (e.g. Hood et al. 1999; Ericson et al. 2003; O’Malley 2004; Power 2004;

2007) to the Olympic experience of risk and changes over time in the organising strategies

used to manage and mitigate risks.

The paper is organised as follows. It first introduces the literatures on risk, society and

culture and explains how governance of the modern Olympics has reflected, as well as

contributed to, production of social, economic and organisational risk. It next explores the

contradiction between the optimism bias (in systematic under-estimation of risk) observed

in planning mega-events such as the Olympics and the wider risk averse and blame-avoiding

tendencies of policy-makers and bureaucrats. Last, it reflects upon the changing nature of

organisational responses to risk in the public and private spheres and presents evidence of

the increased influence of risk as a mobilizing concept in organisation of the Games and in

governance of the Olympic movement.

1. Risk and the Olympics

It is argued in some quarters that the world has entered a new era of extreme events

and risks (e.g. Beck 1992; OECD 2003; Lagadec and Michel-Kerjan 2005; Lagadec 2007).

Proponents of the risk society thesis cite examples such as the AIDS epidemic, the Chernobyl

disaster and the September 11th, 2001 terror attacks as evidence that social, economic and

political cleavages increasingly cut across new boundaries, tearing up existing power

relations and institutional structures. Ulrich Beck (1992, p. 21) argues that risk is modern

society’s response to “hazards and insecurities induced and introduced by modernization

itself.” While natural threats and hazards remain (e.g. famine, flood, drought, earthquakes),

increasingly risks are the consequence of scientific, technological and economic progress

itself – manufactured or amplified through modern forms of social, political and economic

organisation. According to proponents of this dystopian age of uncertainty, risk has diverged

from traditional class and power structures and now trespasses across the boundaries of the

nation state – contributing to the rise of governance to replace government. The globalised

interdependence and scale of modern social and economic life – with its complex interaction

of organisations, science, technologies and individuals – is argued to be a cause of many of

its own instabilities and vulnerabilities. The social production of risk is most clear in system-

level failures that result from unanticipated interaction of errors, failures or oversights (e.g.

Perrow 1984; Vaughan 1997). Further, the idea of risk is interlinked with the anticipation of

catastrophe and disaster itself (Beck 2006), further reinforcing the preoccupation of modern

societies with risk.1 Indeed, whether or not one subscribes to such claims of the newness

and the pervasiveness of the risks encountered in late modernity, in this age of uncertainty

societies, economies and governments are all increasingly organized in response to risk. For

Giddens (1999, p. 3), “… the idea of risk is bound up with the aspiration to control and

particularly with the idea of controlling the future”.

The Olympics are an interesting, and important, site for exploring such questions of risk

and modernity. On the one hand, modernization of the Olympics has itself manufactured

risk through the growing scale, reputation, commercialization and globalization of the event

and through the ever more complex task both of governing the Olympic movement and

organizing the Games – echoing these macro trends. On the other, the Olympics have more

uniquely contributed to wider consciousness of some hazards and threats encountered in

modernity through actual incidents as well as through its influence over the imagination of

governments, media and the public on this mega-event in particular – further accentuating

preoccupation of the risks encountered in modernity. These two aspects of the relationship

between the Olympics and risk are now addressed in turn.

First, processes of modernisation have been critical to social and economic production

of Olympic risk. The growth in the size of the Olympic Games has been dramatic from the

humble origins of the inaugural Games of 1896 – which consisted of 241 athletes competing

in just 43 events across nine sports. In its current form, the Games itself has been described

by Dave Higgins, Chief Executive of London’s Olympic Delivery Authority as “...the world’s

largest peacetime event,”2 with the logistical operation equated to the simultaneous staging

of thirty-three world championships in one city. The London 2012 Olympic and Paralympic

1 Risk is also implicit to social and organisational processes of disaster and crisis sensemaking (e.g. Weick 1988;

1993; Gephart 1993). 2 David Higgins, Transcript of Oral Evidence, 5 March 2007, p.28, HC377, Committee of Public Accounts. (2007).

Preparations for the London 2012 Olympic and Paralympic Games – Risk assessment and management. London: The Stationery Office Limited.

Games, will provide a sporting mega-event on a vast scale – consisting of 26 sports hosted at

31 competition venues over 17 days of competition, bringing together 204 participating

states, around 10,500 athletes, 6,000 officials and coaches and 20,000 media, with around

500,000 visitors to the main Olympic site each day. It is to be policed by an estimated 15,000

police officers3 and 6,500 private security contractors.4 The increasing ambition of the design

and engineering of Olympic cities and urban agendas (Gold and Gold 2007) has meant that

the task of constructing facilities and infrastructure for the Games have required increasing

levels of investment as well as intensive project management and coordination. As the total

number of competition venues, accommodation and training facilities, media centres and

other urban developments has escalated, so too the planning process and operation of the

Games have each become more complex and interdependent – increasing the risk of failures

impeding project management or disrupting Games-time operations.

Because many of the organizational hazards faced by the Olympics are interconnected, it

is vulnerable to systemic exposure to incidents. The interaction of minor errors or failures at

a particular point in the infrastructure network, for example, with other facilities or services

such competition venues or transport routes, can result in severe disruptions. For example,

unpredictable variations in power demand during mega-events such as the Olympics can

increase the risk of blackouts. Ahead of the Sydney 2000 Olympic Games, Kingsford Smith

Airport suffered a power failure that created a backlog of flights – highlighting a potential

risk to the Games. Such a minor disruption to spectator or competitor travel nevertheless

has the potential to impede the entire schedule of Olympic events, as well as transport and

security plans, forcing organizers to abandon years of planning.5

3 Mayor of London (2004). London Assembly Questions on London bid for 2012 Olympic Games and Paralympic

Games – 13.10.04. Answers to non-oral questions, prepared by London 2012, GLA, LDA, TfL 18.10.04, Q. 357/2004. 4 London 2012 bid (2004). Candidate File, Volume 3, p. 39.

5 The concentration of the majority of events, athlete’s accommodation and press facilities on the main site, for

most Olympic Games in recent times, means that there is potential for a single incident to have systemic effects across both the site, infrastructure network and the programme of events.

At the same time, the financial stakes involved in staging the Olympics have increased

considerably over time. The cost to the host city of staging the Games has increased steadily

over time (see Preuss 2000; 2006). While smaller in comparison to the estimated $50 billion

cost of the Beijing 2008 Olympics, the public contribution to the London 2012 Olympics was

budgeted at £9.3 billion while the operating budget of the London Organising Committee for

the Olympic Games (LOCOG) amounts to around £2 billion. With host cities and the Olympic

movement each subject to growing operational costs, the magnitude of economic risk has

increased both for the IOC (which raises revenue through the sale of broadcast rights and

sponsorship partnerships) and for host cities (which depend upon revenues from ticket

sales, domestic sponsorship, and a share of IOC revenues). This now means the Olympics is

exposed to fluctuations in both national and global economies. Lend Lease, developer of the

Olympic Village for London 2012, experienced difficulties in raising private equity and debt

funding for the project because of the economic downturn that followed the global financial

crisis, requiring a government-led rescue package. Around the same period LOCOG was also

forced to cancel a sponsorship contract with Canadian telecoms provider Nortel, which had

filed for bankruptcy protection.

Olympic production of risk is not just organisational or economic in nature, however.

Growth of the Olympics as a global event has also resulted in higher volumes of passenger

flows across borders. The international travel of athletes, support staff, officials, media and

spectators is a potential source of public health risks due both to local factors, such as the

concern over the effects of pollution on visitors ahead of the Beijing 2008 Olympics, and the

increased likelihood cross-border transmission of infectious diseases. This has escalated the

attention of host cities to public health preparedness (Meehan et al. 1998; Jorm et al. 2003;

Davis et al. 2008). At the same time, technologies shape both the technical infrastructure

and the public face of Olympic organisation – for example, computers were first introduced

to record results at the Tokyo 1964 Olympics, while the first Games website created for the

Atlanta 1996 Olympics. However, modernisation of the technologies used to organise and

operate the Games has itself generated new risks that are transnational in their origin and

potential impact. Ahead of the Sydney 2000 Olympics, action plans were devised in response

to concerns over exposure of Olympic preparations to the Y2K problem (SOCOG 2001, p.

272). Fears ahead of the Beijing 2008 and London 2012 Olympics focused on the potential

threat of cyber attacks on the technological infrastructure of Olympic organizers and public

websites.6 Such technological risks are systemic to Olympic organisation and consistent with

the global interdependence of Olympic governance.

In terms of the Olympic production of risk, then, some risks at least are interlinked with

processes of modernisation – consistent with the claims of Beck (1992) and Giddens (1991) –

in organisational, economic and technological forms. As a global event the Olympic Games is

subject to the interconnectedness of risks associated with, for example, finance, security and

public health, while the Olympic movement itself has become a complex system of sports

governance that is transnational in both jurisdiction and influence. Risk and modernity are,

therefore, integral to the Olympic Games of today.

Second, at the same time as reflecting these broader processes of modernization, the

Olympics have provided a unique venue for the experience and the anticipation of risk. The

high level of global attention and real-time media reporting, during the opening and closing

ceremonies in particular, means that the Games have become a major target for symbolic

attacks or protests. Around 4.7 billion viewers watched the television coverage of the Beijing

2008 Olympic Games.7 The Olympics has long been an arena for geo-political agendas and

tensions, and a platform for occurrence of other high impact incidents – whether national or

international in origin. The IOC has long been aware of diplomatic and geo-political risks,

relocating its headquarters in Lausanne, Switzerland, during the First World War due to its

neutral status and enduring Cold War boycotts of the Moscow 1980 and Los Angeles 1984

6 E.g. Maija Palmer. (2009) 'Blunkett warns of cyber attack on Olympics', Financial Times, April 28, 2009.

7 AGB Nielsen Media Research (www.nielsen.com).

Olympics. The protests over China’s human rights record during the international torch relay

for the Beijing 2008 Olympics are more a recent example of such political tensions. Although

the global profile and reputation of the Olympics create opportunities for threats it has also

contributed to wider preoccupation with risk in modernity.

The trend of international terrorism that had emerged during the 1960s reached a new

and unprecedented watershed as the dramatic events of the Munich massacre at the 1972

Olympics unfolded live on televisions across the world. During the second week of Olympic

competitions, eleven Israeli athletes and coaches taken hostage by a group of Palestinian

terrorists, Black September, and later murdered during a botched rescue operation by the

German authorities. As the stage for this defining event in modern terrorism, the Olympics

performed a critical role in shaping global consciousness of the risk and symbolic power of

terrorism for such events. The Olympics are now a recognized and established target for

security threats and for the coordination of military and policing responses (see Richards et

al. 2010) and the biannual staging of the Summer and the Winter Games provides a regular

venue for attention to the threat of terrorism. The power of imagination of risk in planning

for both the Atlanta 1996 Olympics and Sydney 2000 Olympics was prescient of the later Al-

Qaeda attack on the World Trade Centre towers on September 11, 2001. National Security

Advisor Richard Clarke and the White House counter-terrorism team had prepared a plan for

a hijacked plane being flown into the Olympic stadium (Clarke 2004, pp. 107-109). Similarly,

the organizers for Sydney 2000 prepared strategies for the scenario that was most feared by

IOC President, Juan Antonio Samaranch: of a commercial plane being flown into the opening

ceremony.8 Indeed, Olympic concerns about aircraft being flown into the main stadium date

at least to planning for the Munich 1972 Olympics (see Wolff 2002).

In terms of reputational risk, the Olympic brand itself creates high cost for failures that

makes it distinct from other events or projects. Quite benign incidents or accidents can, as a

8 ‘Winning smiles turn to terror tears’, The Melbourne Age, July 8, 2005.

http://www.theage.com.au/news/world/winning-smiles-turn-to-terror-tears/2005/07/07/1120704502059.html

consequence, be amplified under the glare of the media spotlight. For example, journalists

labelled the Atlanta 1996 Olympics the “glitch Games”9 after it suffered a catalogue of minor

operational and logistical problems. In preparations for the London 2012 bid, a feasibility

study warned that “… the Atlanta experience showed the media can play an important role

in defining the perception of the success or otherwise of the Games” (Luckes 1997, p. 66) –

stressing the importance of the provision of high quality facilities for broadcast and media

centres. The Olympics therefore remains something of a special case when considering

questions of reputational risk and the perception of organisational or operational success.

2. The Paradox of Risk and Mega-Events

Why host the Games at all? The bias towards systematic under-estimation of risk in a

mega-event such as the Olympics – consisting of large scale event operations dependent

upon the coordination of multiple mega-projects concerning infrastructure and facilities – is

at odds with the risk averse, controlling, rationalist tendencies of the modern state (e.g.

Scott 1998; Moran 2003).10 Further, incidence of cost overruns or project mismanagement

risks the wrath of public opinion or support from local coalitions critical to mega-projects

(Altshuler and Luberoff 2003, pp. 219-247; Jennings n.d.). This paradox has been attributed

to the influence of ‘icon politics’ (Moran 2001) or a ‘monument complex’ (Flyvbjerg 2002, p.

288) among decision-makers.

In general, mega-events and mega-projects are problematic for contemporary policy-

makers, planners and project managers. There is widespread evidence of systematic bias of

such projects towards the under-estimation of risk, typically manifested in cost over-runs,

delays and project failures (see Flyvbjerg et al. 2002; 2003; Altshuler and Luberoff 2003;

Flyvbjerg and Lowi 2004; Priemus et al. 2008). It has been argued, as a consequence, that

9 Kevin Sack. (25 July 1996). 'Atlanta: Day 6; Atlanta Bristles at All the Criticism', The New York Times. Section B,

p.19. 10

Mega-events can be defined, in general, as “short-term events with long-term consequences for the cities that stage them … associated with the creation of infrastructure and event facilities often carrying long-term debts and always requiring long-term use programming” (Roche 1994: p. 1).

mega-projects and mega-events do not exist in a “Newtonian world of cause and effect”

(Flyvbjerg et al. 2003, p. 6). This tendency to over-optimism in grand projects is a recurring

feature of bureaucratic planning (e.g. Hall 1981; Bovens and t’ Hart 1996; Scott 1998; Hood

1998, p. 149). As perhaps the definitive mega-event of modern times, the Olympic Games

provide an illuminating case for demonstrating how the problem of optimism bias is in direct

contradiction to aspirations towards the control and management of risk – both in adoption

and governance of Olympic bids and planning. Indeed, the Olympic Games are susceptible to

a number of decision-making biases and organisational effects that can accentuate hazards

or threats and condition the responses of organizers (see Jennings 2010; Jennings and Lodge

2011). These contribute to the difficulties encountered in calculating and managing Olympic

risk.

The Olympics is associated with organisational and operational processes that induce

optimism bias concerning both risks and benefits. Optimism bias refers to the systematic

over-estimation of positive outcomes and, therefore, under-estimation of risk. The right to

stage the Games is awarded through a competitive candidature process – with applicant

cities first evaluated by the IOC and then selected through a secret ballot of its membership.

Because of this, bids are often concerned with winning the votes of IOC delegates first and

asking questions later. Indeed, the formal bid documents submitted to the IOC have been

described by Dick Pound, former Vice-President of the IOC, as the “most beautiful fiction”

(see Luckes 1997, p. 1). The under-attention of bids to inadequacies (Luckes 1997, p. 14) is

therefore a source of risk. There is often limited funding available to bid teams for technical

evaluation or for detailed costing of proposals, not least because of the risk that investment

in the IOC candidature process will deliver no financial returns at all. This tends to encourage

reliance upon standardized templates and generic bids, rather than planning on the basis of

first principles. In preparation of the London bid, reference to previous bid documents (see

Luckes 1998) and the formulation of a ‘specimen bid’ (Arup 2002) are characteristic of such

concern with perception of the bid rather than substantive planning. As a consequence of

optimism bias in formal bid documents, the process often leads to divergence between the

initial proposals of bid teams and the subsequent phases of infrastructure construction and

event operations.

While mistaken assumptions about costs and private investment are common to mega-

projects (Flyvbjerg et al. 2003), organisation of the Olympic Games is likewise susceptible to

problems with private financing, both in terms of investment and revenues (Jennings 2010).

The final cost of the Games often is in excess of initial expectations. Indeed, Olympic budgets

have long been in the business of under-estimating expenditure (e.g. Official Olympic Report

London 1908, p. 388). The most renowned case was the $1 billion debt left for the Montreal

city government after the Montreal 1976 Olympics, but the under-estimation of financial risk

is the norm in Olympic budgeting. In more recent times, public funding of the Sydney 2000

Olympics was six times greater than the initial bid (New South Wales Audit Office 1999), the

total cost of the Athens 2004 Olympics increased from £3.2 billion to £6.3 billion (Houses of

Commons Library 2005, p. 37) and the forecast public expense of the London 2012 Olympics

has, to date, escalated from £2.4 billion to £9.35 billion (Jowell 2007, Col. 450-452).11 These

under-estimations of financial risk occurred despite the technical evaluation of costs and use

of expenditure controls (see Auditor-General of British Columbia 2003; National Audit Office

2007).

Another unknown in the candidature phase is the voting behaviour of IOC delegates and

the tallying of votes through the IOC’s run-off system. While the Olympic movement is most

concerned with avoiding the selection of host cities that could threaten their reputation and

revenues, the voting behaviour of the IOC membership itself is sometimes unpredictable,

organised around geopolitical blocs and inattentive to project risks, on occasion disregarding

the preferred choices of the IOC leadership (Pound 2004, pp. 200-201). The surprise win of

11

The original budget prepared for the London ‘specimen bid’ (see Arup 2002, p. 4) put the cost even lower at £1.8 billion.

the Sydney bid in 1993 ahead of Beijing, favoured by the then IOC President Juan Antonio

Samaranch, is one such example of this. The selection of host cities for the Winter Olympics

is more prone to “offbeat” results and voting patterns (Pound 2004, p. 201), with many IOC

delegates less interested in the Winter Games and fewer cities seeking to host it than their

summer counterpart.

There are, furthermore, a great number of uncertainties when developing provisional

bid proposals for staging an event such as the Olympics that is to occur a considerable time

in the future. The extended duration of the bid, planning, organisation and decommissioning

of the Games, often lasting for between fifteen and twenty years, creates a high degree of

uncertainty for organizers in making forecast assumptions about critical project details such

as infrastructure costs, expected revenues and security threats. Errors in bid forecasting can

occur either through incremental divergence from initial conditions (such as slow inflation in

costs) or through sudden shocks that require complete adjustment of planning assumptions

(such as terrorist incidents or economic crises). Since the original proposals for a London bid

(Luckes 1997; 1998; BOA 2000), a number of fundamental transformations have occurred in

the risk environment of the Games – with the escalation of some risks and others in relative

decline. The threat of terrorism to the London 2012 Olympics changed with the events both

of September 11, 2001 and July 7, 2005 highlighting the threat from Al-Qaeda and extremist

Islamic groups, while the threat of Irish republicanism on the British mainland (Luckes 1997,

p. 15) has declined since the 1998 Good Friday Agreement due to success of the Northern

Ireland peace process. Most prominently, while plans for the Games were developed during

a period of economic growth the events of the global financial crisis, and resulting economic

downturn, have impacted upon both public finances and investment from the private sector,

as well as having potential implications for revenue from ticket sales and sponsorship.

Alongside the disproportionate risks that are associated with bids for the Games and the

extended timeline of planning, the Olympics are subject to high costs of organisational and

operational failure that further contribute to risk aversion on the part of decision-makers.

The rigid schedule of ceremonial and sporting events – with the immovable deadline of the

Olympic opening ceremony – heightens the concern of organizers both about project non-

completion and operational or security disruptions. In Olympic planning, postponement is

not an option (although London’s host city contract with the IOC includes a provision for a

postponement of up to three months under certain conditions, in practice the reputational

damage to the UK, London and the Olympics would be quite catastrophic). Concerns over

the readiness of Olympic facilities ahead of the Athens 2004 Olympics highlighted the high

levels of risk associated with project completion. In some cases, Olympic planning is subject

to risk aversion that is more general in origin. For the Salt Lake City 2002 Winter Olympics,

the US Federal Government intervened in security planning after the events of September

11, 2001 – with the Office of Homeland Security designating the Games a National Special

Security Event (the designation of National Special Security Event had, in fact, been created

after the Atlanta 1996 Olympics, Clarke 2004, p. 111). This reflected the heightened state of

concern over terrorism within the Bush Administration and the influence of Vice President

Cheney’s ‘one per cent doctrine’ (Suskind 2006) – which considered a one per cent chance of

an attack to be equivalent to a certainty with respect to formulation of security responses.

Indeed, there is evidence that staging of the Olympic Games is associated with processes of

securitization (e.g. Karyotis 2007, p. 286; Yu et al. 2009).

3. Risk Management and Governing the Games

Studies across a range of disciplines – including history, law, accounting, political science

and sociology – have highlighted the rise of formal controls, regulation and risk management

as a mode of governing modern states, societies, economies and organizations (e.g. Breyer

1993; Majone 1994; 1997; Power 1997; 2004; 2007; Scott 1998; Hood et al 1999; 2001;

Moran 2003; Sunstein 2003; Lodge 2008; Hutter 2010). The concept of risk itself has become

ubiquitous (Bernstein 1996; Leiss and Chociolko 1994).12 Furthermore, risk is increasingly an

organizing concept (e.g. Hood et al. 1992; 2001; Hood and Jones 1996; Ericson et al. 2003;

O’Malley 2004; Power 2007), in fields as diverse as counter-terrorism, nuclear energy, public

health, financial markets and food safety. The replication of organisational responses to risk

across domains has been further reinforced through development of the professional fields

of risk analysis (Hacking 2003) and risk management (Power 2003).

Since the 1980s, risk has been influential both in governance of the Olympic movement

and in organisation and operation of the Games – across functions ranging from finance to

security to critical infrastructures to public health (Jennings 2008; 2010; Jennings and Lodge

2009). This is observed in increased oversight of Olympic bids and host preparations as well

as in the spread of formal oversight, audit and risk management practices in organising the

Games. In terms of oversight, the IOC Candidature Procedure and Questionnaire (IOC 2004a)

requires bids to host the Games to present their plans in a standardised template, evaluated

through assessments of the IOC Evaluation Commission. The IOC candidature process for the

2012 Games was an explicit exercise in risk assessment, with the IOC Evaluation Commission

describing its mission as “… a technical and fact-finding one: to verify the information stated

in the candidature file, to determine whether proposed plans are feasible and to make a

qualitative assessment of risk” (IOC 2004: p. 5). After the candidature phase, monitoring of

host city preparations is conducted on a regular basis by the IOC Coordination Commission –

with its inspection visits providing opportunities to identify risks in project management and

operations. For London organizers, these inspections have generated positive reports of

progress with preparations for the 2012 Games (e.g. Gibson 2009). Oversight processes are

therefore an essential instrument for the IOC to exert some control over organisational and

operational risk.

12

Our modern understanding of risk was established first through the birth of probabilistic thinking during the eighteenth and nineteenth century as mathematicians sought to understand the nature of chance (see Hacking 1975) – often through the lens of gambling – and second in developments in the logic of scientific enquiry around that same period that promoted measurement and quantification (Porter 1995).

In comparison to such public exhibitions of oversight, the spread of risk management

practices throughout Olympic governance has been unobtrusive but is perhaps even more

significant. Risk management was first introduced as a formal mode of organising for the

Calgary 1988 Winter Olympics (Chang and Singh 1990), while the Atlanta 1996 Olympics is

considered ‘the first Games built with a risk management infrastructure,’ 13 having grown out

of the pioneering of risk management by the US Olympic Committee during the 1980s. The

implementation of the industry standard ‘Enterprise Risk Management’ at the Vancouver

2010 Winter Olympics was another first with the comprehensive management of risk by an

Organizing Committee (VANOC).14

Risk-based thinking has been even more extensive and integrated in preparations for the

London 2012 Olympics (Jennings 2009). Formal controls through audit and risk management

have been implemented across the whole of the Olympic programme – covering its policy,

infrastructure, security, finance, operations and legacy functions (see National Audit Office

2007). For example, the audit and the management of programme risks is conducted by the

Olympic Board and Government Olympic Executive, using general information from reports

on threats and hazards to the UK (such as the Cabinet Office’s National Risk Register) as well

as Olympic-specific information compiled from risk registers and risk logs of bodies such as

the Olympic Delivery Authority (ODA) and the Olympic Security Directorate (OSD) within the

Metropolitan Police. At the same time, audit and management of project and operational

risk is also conducted at the level of the individual organisation – through implementation of

bespoke strategies for management of risk, such as the ODA’s ‘three lines of defence’ policy

of line management, programme assurance and risk and audit functions (ODA 2008, p. 67)

and the evaluation of risk and value-for-money in the OSD’s assurance of security projects

for internal funding.15 Likewise, LOCOG conducts ongoing risk assurance that it identifies and

13

Interview with David Mair, Risk Manager for the US Olympic Committee and for the Atlanta 1996 Olympics. 14

Interview with David Mair and Ron Holton, Vice President for Risk Management and Assurance, VANOC. 15

Interview with OSD official.

manages its own business risks (LOCOG 2009, p. 37). In frontline operations, such as public

health and counter-terrorism, risk management instead often occurs through surveillance

and early warning systems – rather than though management of the risks that are internal to

organisation itself.

With risk now becoming paradigmatic in Olympic governance, London 2012’s ‘whole-of-

Games’ approach incorporates programme, project and operational risks as well as creating

a shared language, a ‘boundary object’ (Power 2004, p. 34), that enables communication or

coordination between organisations with discrete functions and professionals from different

communities of practice (such as interaction between agencies concerned with programme-

level risk, operational risk and business risks). However, the risk management instruments

imported from the private sector since the 1980s have become ever more complex and, on

some occasions, have themselves contributed to the production of risk. For example, risk-

transfer agreements negotiated by the Vancouver Organizing Committee (VANOC) for the

Vancouver2010 Winter Olympics transferred the financial burden to venue developers, but

required ongoing project and contract monitoring since the risk transfer created the risk of

non-completion (see Auditor-General of British Columbia 2006, p. 26). In other instances,

such tools have failed to prevent the under-estimation of risk and reinforced optimism bias

in the planning stages due to faith in expert judgments and methodologies. The probabilistic

cost assessment conducted on the budget of the London bid (see PricewaterhouseCoopers

2003) calculated an 80% chance of the cost of the Games falling between £3.4 billion and

£4.2 billion, well below the present estimate of £9.3 billion. This quantification of budgeting

uncertainties did not, therefore, bring a solution to control of financial risk for the London

2012 Olympics, but instead is an example of the sometimes misplaced trust in numbers and

methodologies of risk management that can lead, paradoxically, to the under-estimation of

risk (e.g. Scott 1998; Moran 2001).

4. Conclusion

The task of governing the Olympics now occurs in an age in which states and societies

are increasingly organized in response to risks, and where uncertainties, threats, hazards

and vulnerabilities are said to be a product of modernization itself (e.g. Beck 1992; Giddens

1999). Across a range of theories and disciplines, it is observed that one of the unanticipated

consequences of attempts at control – enabled through scientific, technological, economic

and social progress – is the creation of risk itself (e.g. Beck 1992; Scott 1998; Giddens 1999;

Moran 2003; Power 2004). This age of progress also brings its own unique set of threats and

hazards.

Questions of risk are central to understanding the organisation of the Olympic Games

and governance of the Olympic movement – with regard to the production of risk itself, its

hyper-problematic nature in the context of mega-events, and the growing influence and the

pervasiveness of practice of risk management in Olympic organisation. In this, the analyses

presented in this paper have shown how trends in governance of the Olympics often reflect

broader processes of economic, social and governmental modernisation – in particular in its

own production of organisational-operational hazards or threats and in increasing attention

to risk and its management. As such, the growing scale, reputation, commercialization and

globalization of the Olympic Games have manufactured risks both for its organisation and

operation. As the Games have grown in size and global profile, and the stakes involved have

become ever higher, the potential impact of hazards or threats has multiplied. Much like the

concern of Beck (1992) with scientific and technological production of ecological peril, the

case of the Olympics demonstrates how progress can itself be an unplanned cause of its own

hazards and threats. For the London 2012 Olympic and Paralympic Games, this highlights the

risks that are interlinked with hosting of such a large and complex enterprise.

Risk is known to be hyper-problematic in the context of mega-events and mega-projects

(e.g. Flyvbjerg et al. 2003; Altshuler and Luberoff 2003; Priemus et al. 2008). As the world’s

largest peacetime event, with its operations dependent upon coordination of a network of

mega-projects concerning infrastructure and facilities, the Olympics are susceptible to

decision-making biases and organisational effects that can accentuate the likelihood of

hazards or threats encountered in organisation of the Games. In particular, problems of

optimism bias (Flyvbjerg and Lowi 2004) distort budgeting during the candidature phase as

well as in later project management, while the extended timeline of Olympic planning tends

to create opportunities for slippage and shocks that disrupt preparations. These tendencies

to over-optimism and the under-estimation of risk shape some of the subsequent problems

encountered in calculating and managing Olympic risk.

Last, recent trends in organisation of the Olympics reflect wider shifts in contemporary

governance observed in both the public and private spheres – in particular increased formal

practice of audit, regulation and risk management (e.g. Breyer 1993; Majone 1994; Power

1997; 2004; 2007; Hood et al 1999; Ericson et al. 2003; Moran 2003; O’Malley 2004; Lodge

2008; Hutter 2010). As such, the heightened attention to risk and its formal management in

Olympic organisation is consistent with broader changes in government and business. With

the organisation-wide Enterprise Risk Management first introduced at the Vancouver 2010

Winter Olympics, the London 2012 Olympics represent a new phase in the nexus between

risk and the Games. Risk-based thinking has been ubiquitous in preparations for 2012 so far.

Risk management for London 2012 is holistic, with audit and risk management governing the

whole-of-programme – ranging from policy, infrastructure, security, finance, operations and

legacy functions – both at a strategic level and at the level of individual organisations.

Despite comprehensive introduction of risk management to Olympic governance, these

systems and technologies cannot provide any guarantee that the Games will pass without

serious incident – just as security plans prepared for international terrorism for the Atlanta

1996 Olympics failed to prevent an attack by a lone domestic bomber (Clarke 2004, p. 109).

Such possibilities remain uncertain as the probability of numerous threats and hazards are

difficult to quantify and are matters for qualitative forecasting rather than constituting a

hard quantitative science of risk management. For the London 2012 Olympics, then, even

the integrated and comprehensive implementation of measures designed to minimize,

inhibit and manage risk cannot guarantee the Games will be free of adverse incident in 2012.

More widely, the inexorable growth of the modern Games and Olympic movement

offers a fine example of adaption and evolution of a system of governance in response to

risk – having survived political, financial, security, operational and reputational crises over

the course of its history (see Payne 2006: pp. 5-12). Such problems have taken the form of

political boycotts, cost overruns, terrorist incidents, logistical failures, corruption scandals,

refereeing controversies, doping, and ambush marketing. This also demonstrates how the

production of risk is a potential side-effect of success and the organisational growth of such

a mega-event. While the jurisdictions and responsibilities of the main Olympic organising

authorities – the IOC, host government and organizing committee (OCOG) – have changed

little since the inaugural Games were held in Athens in 1896, a fundamental transformation

has occurred in how the Games are governed with institutionalisation of risk as a mobilizing

concept – both in more nebulous forms of regulation and in the formal management of risk.

These changes in the risks confronting each Games and the preoccupation of Olympic

organizers with their formal management have had deep-rooted effects on how the Games

is organised in modernity.

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