The Olympic Games of 2012 - Essay Example

THE OLYMPIC GAMES OF 2012 By Insert Name Institution Instructor Date Executive Summary With 10880 athletes participating the 2012 Olympic Games were undoubtedly the biggest event in the history of the ever evolving Olympic legacy. Opened officially on the 27th day of July 2012, the games ran for a couple of weeks formally coming to a close on the 12th day of august the same year. With Queen Elizabeth II officially opening the ceremony, 204 nations from across the world brought in athletes to participate in various sports. The games saw 302 events from 26 sports undertaken within the said period. The Olympics games of 2012 were hosted in London with the motto sport at heart inspire a generation. Commonly referred to as London 2012, the 2012 Olympic Games was a major global multi sport experience that went down in history of Olympic Games as one of the most notable. The first event was a football game by women that took place on the 25th of July in Cardiff’s millennium stadium.london emerged as the winning bid for the host position defeating New York City, Paris, Madrid and Moscow. This made London the first city to act as the host of modern Olympics three times having being host in the year 1948 and 1908. The 2012 Olympic Games had a significant impact on the social, political, business and cultural aspects of Europe. With the tedious bidding process, the Olympic games of 2012 instigated stiff international competition development and preparation. As one would expect, the 2012 Olympic games were associated with marketing, broadcasting, controversy, and drug testing. All this were done in an effort to ensure fair competition among the nations especially in this era when doping in sport has become a significant topic of research. This report seeks to explain the nature of Olympic Games in light of the 2012 events in London, focusing on the activities, the participation, contextual research findings and recommendations. This is done in an analytical multi step process that brings out the distinct findings for an effective and reliable report. THE OLYMPIC GAMES OF 2012 Introduction The 2012 Olympic Games went an extra mile as far as themes and focal factors are concerned. In straight forward terms, the 2012 Olympic Games unlike the traditional Olympic Games were characterized by things that were considered out of the ordinary in traditional games and sports. Another theme that made the 2012 Olympic Games stand out, is the theme of sustainability it is worth mentioning that most of the venues used in the 2012 Olympics were not listed in the pre bidding plan. An example worth noting is the Olympic park, a 490 acre piece situated at Stratford in the eastern part of London on a former industrial site. The 2012 Olympic Games, in upholding sustainability saw contributions from various volunteers and other interest groups. Worth mentioning is that the British military, volunteers, Olympic organizations and the UK public were highly appraised for their role in upholding sustainability at the international event. The bidding process The international Olympic committee, declared 15th July 2003, as the official deadline for the application and submission of bids by all cities interested in hosting the multi sport event. As at the 15th day of July 2003, 9 cities had made applications for the host positions of the 2012 Olympics. The cities that had submitted bids were Rio de Janeiro, Paris, Moscow, Madrid, New York, London, Istanbul, Leipzig, and Havana. On the 18th day of May the following year, following technical evaluation, the cities were reduced to 5 by the international Olympics committee. The cities that survived the evaluation were, Paris, London, New York, Madrid and Moscow. All this five cities brought forward their files on the 19th day of November 2004 after which the IOC team in charge of inspection visited them between February and March of 2005( GREAT BRITAIN 2010). The case of Paris was faced by two faults or setbacks during the visit. One of the setbacks was a high number of demonstrations and worker strikes coinciding with the inspection visits. The second one was a report that a principle member of the bid team by the name Guy Drut was to face criminal charges over suspected corrupt party finances. Paris was extensively considered as the most suitable especially because this was its third bid following recent applications. London on the other hand was considered as being far much behind Paris at early stages of the evaluation. By the late 2004, analytical reports indicated that there would be a tie between Paris and London if things remained at the prevailing stance. On the sixth day of July the year 2005, the final results were announced at an IOC session held in Singapore. The elimination was done systematically with Moscow being eliminated first. New York was second to go followed by Madrid. It became automatic that Paris and London would battle it out as the final contenders ( GREAT BRITAIN 2010). The end of the fourth voting round saw London gather 54 votes against Paris 50 votes. This saw round of celebrations in London, festivities that were cut short by bombing on the transport system of the city 24 hours after the declaration of London as the host to be for the forth coming international event. Still preparations went on with the various stake holders getting ready all venues and necessary resources for the 2012 London Olympics. Gender in Olympic Sports The 2012 Olympic Games saw a tremendous increase in the representation of both genders – something that was considered unlikely and simply impossible in previous years. Moreover, female representation was on the rise from unlikely quarters such as Brunei, Qatar and Saudi Arabia. Female athletes from these countries entered the Olympic Games for the very first time after years of gender imbalance and representation in social circles. Research indicates that the above mentioned countries sent at least one female athlete to the various activities of the Olympic Games (GREAT BRITAIN 2007). The 2012 Olympic Games went down in record as the first international event in the history of sports to see the participation of female athletes from the supposedly masculine and chauvinistic cultures as the eastern Asian countries. The gender inequalities have definitely evolved from the perception of women being viewed as timorous, weak and dependent to participating and competing at the same competitive level as male athletes in nearly all sports (Dunning & Waddington, 2003). It is a fundamental fact that women are unable to match the standards of men in a competitive nature as there are the obvious physical differences such as athletic appearances and physical .such factors contribute to the chances of winning. Media have played a crucial role in portraying the obviousness of male dominance in the sporting world as they tend to only televise the male version of games such as Rugby League, Soccer, Cricket, Basketball and other games requiring kinetic exercises. Even so, there are games such as tennis, golf and the athletic Olympics games where women would be represented the most under public spectrum. In the findings of a British research that was conducted using questionnaires that were collected for research purposes, 85.8% of the respondents were for male sports and only 5.9% of the respondents were for female sport (Harris and Clayton 2002). This emphasizes the dominance of the male gender in the world of sporting. Despite the physical differences and the domination of male sports it does not change the fact that they are involved in a competitive sport and therefore have the desire to win. Marion Jones who won 5 medals, 3 gold medals and 2 bronze during the 2000 Sydney Olympics had them formally stripped away due to testing positive for the use of prohibited drugs that were allegedly distributed by the controversial Bay-Area Laboratory Co-Operative (BALCO) – an American company involved in the supply of prohibited substances to a number of high-profile athletes. Jones received a sentence of 6 months imprisonment, two years’ probation and community service in 2008 for previously giving misleading information to the prosecutors investigating BALCO (Butcher and Schneider, 1993). This brings the attention that women receive the same amount of stress as males do and handle it in the same ways that males do. The bottom line is that both genders resort to energy enhancing drugs to an equal extent. Doping In Sport One of the new systems implemented is the doping test in the modern sport arena. There were two significant incidents in the 1960s that instigated this; one being about a Dutch cyclist and the other being a case on a cyclist from UK who had died from an overdose of amphetamines, the hazardous substance that was used by soldiers in the post Second World War period, precisely in 1960 and 1967 (Noakes, 2004). After those incidents, the organization of Olympic Games has been established and announced a list of drugs which could enhance performance and prove harmful to an athlete’s health. The abuse of drugs in sports has been an on an upward trend amongst the athletes. This has occasioned controversial issues concerning the relationship between a substance being a recreational drug and it being a performance enhancing drug for athletes. There are some athletes who have taken recreational drugs solely for social activities and individual practices, but they were penalized for their actions and were suspended for a specific period. According to research, performance enhancing drugs had been prominently used by elite athletes because they were under pressure to perform. Drugs are not only a significant health threat but also a menace to morality and integrity expected of a sports person (Charlish, 2012). Currently, many athletes have been sacked or suspended for the use of recreational drugs. In Australian sports, the Socceroos has been receiving a remarkable popularity. According to The Daily Telegraph dated 5th of April, Mariner Troy Hearfield was sacked after failing a drugs test that revealed traces of recreational drug use. Hearfield could be banned from all sports for a period of between 1 to 5 years after traces of the drug were found following a routine test. He was one of the players that had qualified for the Beijing Olympics. The daily said that Hearfield's case comes at a sensitive time after ASADA (Australian Sports Anti-Doping Authority) launched its report and subsequent investigations into drugs in sport, with only football having so far not been involved. It’s a controversial issue that has triggered many arguments, including nonsensical ones. For instance, an observer once commented that if all athletes will have equal opportunity to dope, equality will have been achieved as no one will be having a better chance of winning. The obvious problem is that it assumes that all athletes will be stratified with the legally prescribed doping dose. Instead it will almost certainly be assumed that if having the allowed dose of a drug or treatment improved performance, then further gains might be achieved by illegally taking additional dose. The desire to win will mean that some athletes will simply illegally increase their intake of doping substance. Broadcasting An Olympic broadcasting service, OBS was the chief broad caster for the 2012 using its own crews, and its cameras, and other sub contracted resources such as cover tents. Broad casting was done, effectively. The audio products and other videos were sold to other broad casters for the transmission in the international scene. Speaking of broad casting and transmission, Panasonic technologies stood out as the formal recording partner. The formal visual partner was distributed in high definition format (GREAT BRITAIN 2007). The international Olympics committee wanted to have TV coverage reaching the world population. As such the Olympics of 2012 held in London were covered by various national broad casting corporations in the United Kingdom with BBC and channel 4 carrying the Olympics and the Paralympics’. Free streaming of the live events was accessible by all the corporations that acquired broadcasting rights The United States rights, prominently owned by the NBC took half of the rights for the international Olympics committee. Thousands of America citizens could, however access the British broadcasting corporations coverage through proxy servers. The world both developed and developing closely followed the on goings at the Olympics despite not attending physically, thank you to effective broad casting and advanced technology. The 2012 Olympic games of London have been widely explained as a showcase of technological prowess and sustainability efforts. You tube, was among the gaining stake holders considering that it procured broad casting rights that would see it service the vast online communities (GREAT BRITAIN 2007). For internal security services, CCTV cameras were used to keep on the low instances of terrorism and threats of violence. Marketing The marketing efforts for the summer 2012 Olympics took many forms one of them being the use of music and other forms of entertainment. Muse’s song survival was declared the formal song for the Olympics. It was to be played and aired by international broad casters making reports on the games. In the month of august 2009, various artists had been commissioned by the royal mail to come up with a number of stamps to be used for the purposes of 2012 Olympics. Besides this logos and graphics were used in the marketing process, with there being two logos for the event (GREAT BRITAIN 2007) One was created by Kino design for the process of bidding and the other one was made as a brand for the games themselves. The first logo was a ribbon with red, green blue, yellow and black stripes running through the writings ‘London 2012’. The logo made the shape of a river – Thames in the eastern part of London. The second logo made by Wolff Olins was published on the fourth june2007. This was a representation of digits 2012 with the 0 bearing the Olympics rings. Despite the marketing logos being strong, the public’s reception of the same was significant negative with more than eighty percent of the opinions giving it the least rating. This was especially so in the case of the main logo. Creativity was highly employed in the marketing endeavors with mascots being designed to represent various stakeholders from both genders across the social divide. The formally used mascots for the Olympic Games were launched on the 19th day of May 2010 (GREAT BRITAIN 2007). The two official mascots, Wenlock and mandaville were animations representing a couple of drops of steel from a steel company in Bolton. They were named after wenlock a town that holds a fore runner of contemporary Olympic games. Conclusion In conclusion, it is note worthy that from the fore going report, the 2012 Olympic games, were not only a social event but also a multi cultural event as it saw people frm across the cultures coming together and standing for new themes, namely, elimination of drugs in sport, sustainability nad equality in gender representation in the Olympic arena. It is also worth mentioning that the 2012 olympic games, contrary to common expectations were a form of revolutionary ideology as they attracted significant volunteering and environmental awareness. The marketing endevours were quite remarkable making the 2012 olympic games appear as a land mark event in the history of sporting. Summarily the 2012 olympic games were a uniting factor as they brought together nations and athletes towards a common cause – redefining the role of sport in social life in the contemporary multi cultural society. Reference list Butcher R, Schneider A 1993, Drugs in sport: an analysis of the justification for bans and the ethical rationale for drug-free sport’, Canadian Centre for Drug-free Sport. Charlish, P 2012 Drugs in Sport. Legal Information Management, 12, pp 109­-120 Dunning, E. and Waddington, I. 2003 “Sport as a Drug and Drugs in Sport: Some Exploratory Comments” International Review for the Sociology of Sport 38(3): 351 – 368 GREAT BRITAIN. 2007. Preparations for the London 2012 Olympic and Paralympic Games: risk assessment and management. London, The Stationery Office. GREAT BRITAIN. 2010.Olympic Games and Paralympic Games 2012: legacy : oral and written vidence. London, Stationery Office. Harris, J. and Clayton, B. 2002 “Femininity, Masculinity, Physicality and the English Tabloid Press: The Case of Anna Kournikova” International Review for the Sociology of Sport 37(3-4): 397 – 413 Noakes, T.D. 2004 “Tainted Glory – Doping and Athletic Performance” The New England Journal of Medicine 351(9): 847 - 849 Read More