Olympic legacy: Does the Olympics really increase sports participation?

By Dr Chris Mackintosh, Senior Lecturer in Sport Policy at Manchester Metropolitan University Institute of Sport.

Dr Mackintosh is also a special advisor to the Select Committee for the National Plan for Sport and Recreation. He also visited Tokyo in 2018 to advise the government on soft legacy and the learnings from London Olympics 2012.

For decades, the idea that elite sport events will increase sport participation has dominated sports policy.

Since the Sydney Olympics in 2000, there has been an increase in host cities including plans to “increase community sport participation” in their legacy.

But the impression that by spending millions on hosting a worldwide event will inspire people to become more active is largely a myth.

While elite athletes may act as a role model for a small minority of people, who predominantly already engage in sport, research shows that watching elite sport can often have the opposite effect and put people off – particularly women.

The lack of relatability, whether that be the physique or the skill of the athlete, affects the relationship between the spectator and the athlete and can discourage the ‘average’ person.

While watching athletes such as Jessica Ennis leaping over the hurdles, people feel they can never reach that standard – so why would they even try?

We need to now be drawing on role models of more ‘People Like Me’ as the latest government thinking has moved towards in England.

Events that are actually more likely to deliver this legacy are events such as the London Marathon or Park Run. We see people from all walks of life participating, raising money for charity, and achieving this with little training and the essence of fun at its heart. That is an enabler and is likely to make legacy happen.

London 2012

In London’s bid to host the 2012 Olympics, the city was clear in its focus to aim to inspire two million people to become more active by 2012/13.

A priority was put on elite sport and pressure piled on athletes to achieve medals. But figures show that activity levels remained static within this time.

Winning medals and being successful at the Olympic Games is not enough to convince people to pick up a pair of running shoes and start running around a track.

For a mega event to have a positive impact on sport participation for everyone, the country needs the right type of infrastructure to deliver sport. But, only a few years before the London Olympic Games began, the coalition government made the decision cut back the School Sport Partnership programme, which brought dedicated physical education (PE) teachers into schools with the aim to increase the level of participation in PE and out of hours school sport among children in England.

These are the kind of programmes we need to support the participation legacy.

While people may decide to pick up a tennis racket for two weeks during Wimbledon, we need a programme to keep them engaged beyond.

Behind Football (30% of clubs), the second most popular community sport in terms of the number of sports clubs, is bowls (8%). The sport is great for older people and can support the government’s mental health plan post-COVID.

It can help combat arthritis, create friendships, and prevent isolation and loneliness. But, bowls only receives around £600,000 every four years to run as a sport.

There are many other sports in this position that can deliver government targets of mental health and wellbeing – we seem to be missing a trick.

We need to look at the people who are the least likely to be in a stadium playing sport and see what we can do for them and identify the barriers preventing them taking part.

A promising start

But it is not all doom and gloom. There are things starting to happen in the country that seem promising.

The Football Association (FA) is already doing great things for people with disabilities. Over the course of the pandemic, my colleague Dr Dave Sims, who also works as a sport scientist for the FA’s disability team, created a series of videos tailored to each disability to keep people active during lockdown.

The Lawn Tennis Association has also been working with mosques to ensure clubs fit in with prayer times, that female coaches are available and that the sport is accessible for all those people who would not usually take part.

These are all relatively small steps but with a potential big impact on activity levels and the activities that we should be looking at within sport policy.

So, although Japan will have a tricky year delivering any planned legacies due to COVID-19, there are many learnings from the London Olympics that Paris (2024) or Los Angeles (2028) can take on board in future games.