Volunteering Legacies from the Olympic Games: Missed Opportunities

This paper examines how far a post-event volunteering legacy is facilitated by event organising committees leveraging existing volunteering infrastructure in host communities. The paper uses the lens of regulatory capitalism to examine how the organising committees of the Sydney 2000 and London 2012 Olympic Games engaged with the third sector, and specifically the volunteering infrastructure of the host nations, in the planning, delivery and post-event phases to create a volunteering legacy for the host community. The two case studies involved 27 in-depth interviews with key stakeholders representing the organising committees and the volunteering infrastructure in the host cities. While the Sydney Olympics had no specific remit for legacy planning, the third sector led legacy efforts in Australia. At the London Olympics, there was a failure to engage with the third sector, which limited government-led legacy planning and implementation. In the latter case, the framework of regulatory capitalism prioritised contracts with the private sector over meaningful engagement with the third sector.