Austerity Games Case Study

1. List the main international political issues and individuals that affected the Olympic games you selected? Point format is required.
This paper explores the political and social contexts of the 1948 Summer Olympics held in London.
1. The 1948 Summer Olympics was the first sporting event of this magnitude after the Second World War. The “Austerity Games” of 1948 were a stark contrast against the extravagant, and propagandistic tradition set by the 1936 Berlin Games, the last games before the War (Hampton, 2012). The total budget of the Organizing Committee was about £750 000 (Baker, 1994).
2. The loss of economic support from the US, still reeling from the war, crippled the UK economy and forced the new Labor Government to introduce a number of constraining policies of austerity, to meet the

The International Olympic Committee mandated that 50% of the proceeds from ticket sales and promotions would be distributed overseas through the national Olympic Committees of the participating countries to strengthen international relations (Hampton, 2012).
10. In May 1948, the cancellation of demand and tickets from the U.S. led to the evaporation of £120,000 worth of tickets, casting doubts over the financial viability of the games.
11. Sir Noel Curtis-Bennett, Vice-Chairman of the British Olympic Association stepped in to allay fears and remind people of the Olympic spirit and its importance in building international relations (Beck, 2012).
12. The staging of Olympics in London heralded a new geopolitical era, in which Britain 's imperial supremacy slowly came to an end.
13. A number of ethical issues surfaced in the 1948 Olympics, including doping scandals and the sponsorship of the Olympics by Dow Chemicals – a British company which was responsible for a gas leak in India, killing thousands of people in Bhopal.

2. Select one or two main issues identified in question 1. How did the main individuals (IOC, host city/country, athletes, sponsors, citizens) react to