Legacy Governance – Sydney Olympic Park

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Sydney Olympic Park

  • Olympic City: Sydney
  • Country: Australia
  • Edition of the Games: 2000 Olympic Summer Games
Since 2001
Sydney & New South Wales
©Free Vector Maps

How Legacy Governance Started In Sydney

Known as “the best Games ever” according to former IOC President Juan Antonio Samaranch, Sydney 2000 Summer Olympic Games highly contributed to both the promotion of sport and the largest land remediation project of its kind at the time and transformed a wasteland into Australia’s premier sports precinct and a model for sustainable development and urban renewal. It is now considered as one of if not the best post-Olympic Games townships.

The successful bid for the 2000 Olympic and Paralympic Games in 1993 significantly increased the pace and scope of development within the area and it became one of Australia’s largest urban renewal projects. From 1995, the Olympic Coordination Authority (OCA) became responsible for the planning, urban development and management of the area and facilities for the Sydney 2000 Olympic and Paralympic Games. OCA played an integral role in the planning and delivery of the Games. An archive of Games information is available on the Games Info website. Sydney Olympic Park Authority (SOPA) was established on 1 July 2001 with the responsibility for managing the public assets of Sydney Olympic Park – open space, venues, parklands and development areas. The Sydney Olympic Park Authority Act No 57 is constituted to ensure the best use and management of a large and unique area in Sydney, an area which is a world renowned destination. The overall vision is for the Park to be an internationally admired example of sustainable urban renewal and development. One that integrates world-class venue infrastructure and parklands with a new community of workers, businesses, residents, students and visitors to create a valued legacy of the Games.

The Sydney Olympic Park Authority is responsible for managing and developing the 640 hectares that comprise Sydney Olympic Park and maintaining it as a lasting legacy for the people of NSW. Sydney Olympic Park Authority is responsible for day-to-day management of 220 hectares of its urban core, all public places, 430 hectares of parklands and 18 sporting venues. This includes the management of buildings, facilities and landscape assets; delivery of programs and events; enhancement of visitor experience; provision of sports and leisure facilities; conservation of water, energy and resources; protection of ecosystems, heritage and the environment; and general coordination of the orderly use, operation and development of the precinct. The Authority continues to develop Sydney Olympic Park, under the guidance of Master Plan 2030 (2018 Review), to be an internationally admired example of sustainable urban renewal and development. One that successfully integrates world-class events, venues and parklands with a new community of workers, residents, students and visitors and a valued legacy of the Sydney 2000 Olympic and Paralympic Games.

Sydney Olympic Park today generates in excess of $1B worth of economic activity annually; hosting 5,500 sport, entertainment, cultural and business events including 51 days with 30,000+ visitors.

The Mission of the Olympic Park is to curate world-class places and events that deliver exceptional customer experience. The Park is today a place to call home, a place for business, a place to learn and a place to visit.

Vision

Sydney Olympic Park is an internationally recognised place with world-class events, venues, parklands and a great place to live and work, built on its Olympic legacy in a sustainable way.

Legacy is…

For Sydney Olympic Park, legacy is about transformation – from urban wasteland to athletes’ village and the best ever athletes’ Games to a sustainable vibrant super lifestyle city. Sydney Olympic Park is a unique world class Olympic legacy that has been developed into Australia’s ‘home of sport’ – a precinct founded, developed, and inspired by sport, its ideals, character and the Australian sporting spirit.

What’s next?
The Sydney Olympic Park Master Plan 2030 Review provides a blueprint for future urban development within the Park, providing for more than 34,000 jobs, 10,000 new dwellings – 23,500 residents, 5,000 students and 100,000m2 of retail while retaining major-event capability for up to 250,000 patrons and improving access to the 430 hectares of Parklands. The Plan sets out a commitment to achieve the highest possible rating of 6 -Star Green Star Communities. Sydney Olympic Park Authority is also working with Smart Cities Council to become the first Olympic precinct to gain Smart City accreditation. The Green Star and Smart City accreditation will: create conditions for greater sustainability outcomes, gather real time intelligence, protect the natural and the built environments, engage community, transform services and quality of life for everyone and implement sustainable planning of communities across governance, liveability, economic prosperity, environment and innovation.

Objectives

Promote a healthy and active lifestyle

The Sydney Olympic Park Authority collaborates with it’s over 50 sporting organisations including state and national sporting bodies to deliver community participation programs. These sports partnerships with local sporting associations and the Park’s 12 home sports team and athlete ambassadors help inspire participation in a range of sports programs including 4,000 children participating in one of Australia’s largest swim schools, programs in football, gymnastics, basketball, cricket, AFL, rugby league, netball and over 500,000 schools students participating in athletics and swimming carnivals annually.

Increasing Sports participation is a multifaceted objective. The Sydney Olympic Park combines high-level facilities and a great choice of activities. The creation of open green space builds on the health and wellbeing of the community all year round both for the local population and for sports people. The environmental and cultural history of the Park is promoted through the Authority’s education programs.

The Authority has also developed a unique program for residents workers and students at Sydney Olympic Park to have access to programs events and concerts called Lifestyle. The Lifestyle program promotes lunch time activities and sports competitions.

The Authority has also facilitated the creation of Australia’s first sports technology incubator, the Sydney Sports Incubator which drives innovation in health wellbeing and high performance sport. Sydney Olympic Park is an innovation hub and welcomes business and R&D activities focusing on developing these technologies. The Sydney Sports  Incubator has been established to nurture sports start-ups and spearhead innovation in sports business and health.

Evaluation

Promote the City by leveraging its affiliation with the Olympic Movement

Sydney Olympic Park is Australia’s home of sport, a sports hub but it is also a wold class destination for living, working and studying.

Education is a key program for the Park. This includes delivery of Technical Tours for future Olympic and World Cup host precincts. Visitors are invited to go behind the scenes of Sydney Olympic Park, the site of the “best Games ever”. With the release of the Sydney Olympic Park Masterplan (Review) 2030, visitors can hear about how this world-class sport and entertainment precinct has grown into a thriving residential and commercial centre. They learn about corporate governance and strategic planning; urban planning and development; business development; and community engagement. Such technical tours are ideal for professional and conference groups; university study groups; domestic and international business delegations; and government agencies

The Sydney Olympic Park Authority offers a unique case study of sustainable urban development all driven by hosting the Sydney 2000 Olympic Games.

Another key initiative of the Sydney Olympic Park Authority’s education team is the delivery of global video conferencing to international students during the hosting of major sporting events that foster positive cultural exchange.

Last but not least, Sydney showcases legacy in dedicated places. Sydney Olympic Park is home to the biggest collection of large-scale site-specific urban art in a single precinct in Australia. With more than 50 pieces of public art and urban cultural features spread across this multi-faceted site, the collection provides a unique record of the evolving cultural history of Sydney Olympic Park. As well as works relating to the Sydney 2000 Olympic and Paralympic Games, there are also pieces that evoke the early industrial uses of the site.

Sydney Olympic Park generates in excess of $1B worth of economic activity annually. The total number of events held at the Park for 2017-18 was 5,566. The number of visitors to Sydney Olympic Park in 2017-18 was 10.5 million including ticketed entertainment attendance increased by 355,000 visitors (+37%) – the main driver was concert attendance which was up 305,000 visitors.

In 2017-18 there were 51 days when there were more than 30,000 event patrons in the Park which is the same number as 2016-17. Sports based events eclipsed business events as the main type of event held across the Park in 2016-17. This difference has increased in 2017-18, with sports based events now comprising 47% of total events and business events now comprising 37%.

The Sydney Olympic Park based community grew in 2017-18 to 23,810 people, an increase of 1% on 2016-17. This is comprised of 17,500 workers; 4,450 residents; and 1,860 students.

Sydney Olympic Park Authority manages the Sydney Olympic Park precinct and has implemented the collation and reporting of visitor statistics on an annual basis in order to support attracting new investment and new business; planning services and facilities;  reporting to State Government and other key stakeholders; tracking market penetration of campaigns; and understanding relevance of Sydney Olympic Park to different markets.

As for the methodology applied, visitor data collection from venues and relevant Sydney Olympic Park Authority staff is completed either via a template or from the venues’ internal reporting systems. All data is then consolidated into a standard format. The information collected includes total number of visitors and the number of events held by purpose of visit segments.

The reporting of the number of workers, residents and students is based on the five yearly ABS Census, an intermediary Workforce Survey specific to Sydney Olympic Park and internal information from Property Development as relevant developments are complete.

Key Challenges

The hosting of the Olympic Games almost 20 years ago has allowed the NSW Government to create a global major events sports precinct.

The selection of a central clustered precinct certainly benefited the Sydney 2000 Games delivery but also provided an investment incentive for Government to embark on the largest remediation project of its kind at the Sydney Olympic Park site.

The focus of our challenges moving forward as an Olympic precinct is the increasing costs associated with venue and precinct maintenance. This is being addressed with the creation of new and upgraded sporting facilities which include Olympic and non-Olympic sports that are popular in Australia. In collaboration with national and state sporting organisations  SOPA and the NSW Government have been able to deliver and commit to sports facility projects including, BMX Racing, Mountain X, skateboarding and ‘centres of excellence’ for popular sports in Australia such as netball, rugby league and AFL and upgrades to sports fields, indoor sports halls, hockey, tennis, athletics and swimming facilities.

The Sydney Olympic Park Authority has been successful in collaborating with each sport to drive both community sport and top level sport in Sydney Olympic Park in a sustainable way. The strong sports use of facilities has been a key aspect of the Park’s success. Use drives investment and upgrades and new facility development.

Key learnings and recommendations

Identifying the right location for venues is key for post-Games era
The central model for the location of most venues in a central sports precinct certainly worked for Sydney’s Games. It provided the impetus for the largest land remediation project of its kind. Having acknowledged this each city that is contemplating hosting will have different considerations around the legacy benefits and how they may suit different models of delivery, but in Sydney’s case the central model worked.

As the Park now evolves into the ‘central city’ as the NSW Government’s Greater Sydney Commission planning agency refers to the Park. The next phase of significant housing, entertainment commercial facilities are planned which will all be linked with light rail/metro and direct connections to the eastern CBD and Sydney’s planned 2nd airport in the west of the city.

Identification of the right facility delivery model to suit both current and future growth is fundamental. Decisions need to balance with event needs and future legacy and planning needs to allow a city to achieve a sustainable outcome and a lasting legacy such as Sydney Olympic Park.

Focusing on your strengths to deliver the best legacy outcome
Sydney Olympic Park has rich biodiversity which included 400 native plant species and over 200 native vertebrate animal species. It includes three endangered ecological communities, over 180 species of native bird, 7 species of frog, 10 species of bat, 15 species of reptiles and native fish species. This high species diversity and abundance in the geographical centre of a large and modern city contributes to Sydney Olympic Park’s high ecological, aesthetic and educational values.

Sydney Olympic Park’s once-degraded wetland and terrestrial ecosystems underwent extensive restoration works during the late 1900s in what was the largest land remediation exercise ever undertaken in Australia.

The high profile of the Sydney 2000 Olympic Games ‘Green Games’ provided a strong social driver for fast–tracking these works and led to their integration with ecologically sustainable development initiatives occurring as part of the Games development.

The bid for the Games had included a set of environmental guidelines for implementation by host cities (Sydney 2000 Bid Limited 1993) based on sustainability principles adopted at the 1992 United Nations Earth Summit. They included commitments to the preservation and protection of natural ecosystems and endangered species, as well as energy and water conservation, waste minimization, resource conservation and prevention of pollution.

Today the Park work’s with all key sports stakeholders to achieve in partnership from community participation to top level sport. The Park has become an inspiration for tomorrow’s athletes as they engage and watch the top level athletes train and play in Sydney Olympic Park. The below ‘Sports Network Model’ highlights the many dimensions of the Park’s unique sports ecosystem that inspires sports participation.

Sports Network Model
Inspiring participation!

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Pictos_information

 

More information

 

The full case is available in printable version on the members’ portal. 

In addition to the above description, the PDF version also gathers practical information including internal and external partners involved; finance and cost; use of the olympic brand; human resources and time; and contact details. 

The World Union of Olympic Cities’ team remains at your disposal for any further information and contact’s facilitation at info@olympiccities.org 

Additional resources can be found through the following links:

www.sydneyolympicpark.com.au/

www.sopa.nsw.gov.au

https://www.sopa.nsw.gov.au/About-Us/History-and-Heritage/Our-History

http://pandora.nla.gov.au/pan/13323/20020919-0000/www.gamesinfo.com.au/

https://www.sydneyolympicpark.com.au/education/technical-insight-tours

https://www.legislation.nsw.gov.au/#/view/act/2001/57/whole

Legacy Governance – Seoul

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Korea Sports Promotion Foundation

  • Olympic City: Seoul
  • Country: Korea
  • Edition of the Games: 1988 Olympic Summer Games
Since 1989
Korea
©Free Vector Maps

How legacy Governance Started in Seoul

With “Enjoy Sport, We Support” as a motto, the Korea Sports Promotion Foundation (KSPO) offers a very efficient and unique legacy governance model.

After successfully hosting the Olympic Games, Korea needed a public foundation for two purposes. The first was to commemorate the Seoul Olympic Games and manage Olympic legacy. The second purpose was to provide funds for the development of Korean sports in general by managing the Olympic surplus. In itself, the KSPO is a direct, concrete and lively legacy from the 1988 Olympics.

The KSPO was founded as a public service corporation on April 20, 1989 with authorization from the Minister of Culture, Sports and Tourism in order to commemorate the 1988 Summer Olympics and promote national health through sports. KSPO‘s five main functions are the following: (i) to provide financial support in order to promote national sports, and raise and distribute funds; (ii) to install and support sports facilities and foster the sport industry; (iii) to conduct research in sport science; (iv) to undertake projects commemorating the Seoul 1988 Olympic Games; (v) to support youth-development projects.

As a strong supporter of financial affairs for Korean sports, the KSPO contributes to improving quality of life so that all Korean people can live in harmony through sports and enjoy a healthy life through sports in daily life.

The KSPO is also operating three Olympic sports centres in the Olympic Park, Bundang and Ilsan areas so that citizens can enjoy sports in their daily lives. These centres provide a wide range of facilities and programs for citizens’ systematic health care and sports activities.

Vision

KSPO aims at being a reliable supporter in promoting citizen sports welfare.

Legacy is…
Olympic Legacy is a medium for sports promotion both in Seoul and Korea. In addition, this part of Seoul’s history is an asset for promoting the City itself.

What’s next?
KSPO will do the best to develop the institution into a top-notch public corporation that creates best value. KSPO’s management innovations and endless efforts for changes will endear the corporation to the nations. In addition, KSPO is currently reflecting on how it can further capitalize on the heritage of the park, including making souvenirs using the mascot of the 1988 Games, for which the IOC has the copyrights.

Objectives

Promote a healthy and active lifestyle

Enjoying life through sport is directly related to the individual’s right to happiness. Hence, the KSPO is helping people maintain health and vitality through participation in sports and leisure activities.

KSPO contributes to improving national health and quality of life through the promotion of sports.

One of KSPO’s visions is to be a reliable supporter in promoting citizen sports welfare. Thanks to high quality and accessible sports and welfare centres (three Olympic sports centres), the KSPO aims at facilitating sports practice among the population.

Promote social and constructive behaviour

Playing as a role model, KSPO is fully utilising its existing network to fulfil its vision of social responsibility “Creating social values through sports”. It also aims at building a fair society with shared growth. By doing so, KSPO promotes Olympic values such as respect and friendship and contributes to maintaining the Olympic spirit alive within society. Among others, the KSPO implements projects oriented towards giving hope to uneducated young adults through sports; utilising KSPO infrastructure such as the Olympic Museum, Seoul Olympic Museum of Art, Olympic Youth Hostel, and Korea Institute of Sport Science to provide various sports-related, hands-on job experiences, education on Olympic values, and creativity programs for elementary to high school kids; contributing to local community charity work such as volunteering welfare facilities, giving donations, helping with farm work, and distributing briquettes to solitary elderlies. The Hope Sharing 2nd Round project consists of creating jobs for seniors, providing tutors to low-income classes, supporting camps for the disabled, and providing emergency medical costs.

Promote the city by leveraging its affiliation with the Olympic Movement

One of the initial missions of the KSPO was to commemorate the Seoul Olympic Games and to manage the Olympic Legacy. By valuing and re-using Olympic venues throughout the City, the KSPO contributes to spreading the Olympic history of the City and the Olympic Spirit in Seoul and beyond. Through the promotion of art and culture (Seoul Olympic Museum of Art), the accessibility to sports facilities and accommodation at Olympic Parktel, KSPO anchored the City’s modern activities with its Olympic past.

Evaluation

About 5.23million people visit Seoul Olympic Park every year.

About 0.22million people visit Seoul Olympic Museum every year.

KSPO provides Olympic Values Education Programme to 1,000 students a year.

Key Challenges

Securing financing from sports activities to sports activities
KSPO designed an original model that finances sports through sports. It raises national sports promotional funds from cycle racing, motorboat racing and Sport Toto, and uses them to contribute to enhancing life standards through sports and fitness programmes.

Ethics at the heart of management
KSPO puts enormous effort on making ethical management as part of the daily lives of its employees and partners by improving the quality of service through management innovations and transparent company cultures. To become a trusted partner with collaborating companies and local communities, KSPO puts emphasis on building transparent contract processes and nurturing small and medium sports companies. KSPO makes continuous efforts while working fairly and confidently to become a role model for any public services.

Social responsibility is core to KSPO’s work. KSPO’s LoveShareVolunteers programme plays a central role getting its employees to participate in various volunteer work in local communities, spreading values of sharing and shared growth in order to make the society a better place.

Key learnings and recommendations

Making Citizens Healthy & Korea Energized through Vitalizing Sports For All
For everyone – from children to seniors – to enjoy sports regardless of their age, area, or income, we build various sports facilities such as citizen health centres and open gyms around the neighbourhoods as well as renovate deteriorating public sports facilities.

Free Assessment of Physical Fitness & Exercise Prescription Service
KSPO provides the National Fitness Award program to manage citizens’ health and promote sports participation. Any citizen who is 13 years old or above can visit the Citizen Fitness Assessment Centre (a total of 43 centres around the nation as of 2018) to scientifically assess their own health condition. Fitness professionals will then provide appropriate management plans according to the citizen’s needs. Starting 2016, the National Fitness Award On-Demand Bus and its staff has been on service to provide the same National Fitness Award program to busy individuals such as taxi & bus drivers and office workers.

Pictos_information

 

More information

 

The full case is available in printable version on the members’ portal. 

In addition to the above description, the PDF version also gathers practical information including internal and external partners involved; finance and cost; use of the olympic brand; human resources and time; and contact details. 

The World Union of Olympic Cities’ team remains at your disposal for any further information and contact’s facilitation at info@olympiccities.org 

Additional resources can be found through the following links:

 

http://www.kspo.or.kr/english/main/main.do

Legacy Governance – St-Louis

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St. Louis Olympic Legacy Committee

  • Olympic City: St. Louis
  • Country: United States of America
  • Edition of the Games: 1904 Olympic Summer Games
Since 2018
St. Louis & St. Louis area
©Free Vector Maps

How Legacy Governance Started In St. Louis

As the city that hosted America’s First Olympic Games, the birthplace of the Olympic Gold Medal, and the city that debuted Olympic diving, freestyle wrestling, boxing, and the decathlon, among many other firsts, St. Louis has as a goal to ignite or re-ignite the passion and Olympic spirit throughout the St. Louis metropolitan area. As the Games were held in 1904, St. Louis needs to physically reconnect with its Olympic history through visible signs and symbols. This process is a natural and sustainable continuation of the 2004 Olympic Centennial Celebration, as described in the Olympic Legacy Toolkit.

As a Member of the World Union of Olympic Cities and St. Louis’ representative to the United States Olympic Committee and the International Olympic Committee, the St. Louis Sports Commission’s goal is to inspire awareness and pride in St. Louis’ Olympic affiliation, and to positively impact St. Louis through its opportunities as an Olympic City.
In February 2018, the St. Louis Sports Commission unveiled its plans to raise the profile and impact of its region’s involvement in the Olympic Movement. The plans include initiatives to visibly identify the venues that hosted Olympic events in 1904. Two Olympic “spectaculars” – sculptures of the Olympic rings – will be displayed at sites that are historically linked to the 1904 Games. The first one was unveiled in Washington University, home to the 1904 Olympic Stadium and birthplace of the Olympic gold medal. The spectacular is located on the northeast corner of Francis Field, the oldest modern-day Olympic Stadium in active use. A site for the second spectacular will be chosen in a near future. To emphasize the historical significance of former Olympic places as well as to invite people to interact with and feel part of the Olympic Movement, interpretive signage will be installed featuring each venue’s role in the 1904 Games along with notable facts and stories. Each sign will include an IOC-approved stamp that incorporates the Olympic rings and has been specifically designed for St. Louis’ Olympic legacy programme. Complementing the spectaculars and signage initiatives will be grassroots programmes and educational platforms intended to engage the entire community, especially young people, in Olympism. A dedicated website has also been developed, that highlights the history, innovations and relevance of the 1904 Olympics, and provides information about the Olympic legacy project. Last but not least, by setting up a structured Olympic Legacy Committee, the St. Louis Sports Commission provides the necessary means and human resources as well as the sustainability and the time required for the project to achieve its objectives: to properly embrace and celebrate St. Louis’ Olympic Legacy, carry this torch for future generations and boost opportunities for the City and the region. Olympians and Paralympic athletes have been closely associated with the institution and the project and play a tremendous role in promoting the vision and the mission of the St. Louis Olympic Legacy Committee.

Vision

The project is clearly inscribed within the IOC Agenda 2020 vision and the affiliation of St. Louis with the World Union of Olympic Cities.

Legacy is…
“As host of the 1904 Games and as America’s first Olympic city, St. Louis is in exclusive company, forever having a place at an international table that includes the world’s greatest cities. Our region’s role in the Olympic Movement is something to celebrate, and we want to make a transformative difference in St. Louis through the opportunities we have as an Olympic city.” Frank Viverito, St. Louis Sports Commission President.

What’s next?
The objectives of the St. Louis Olympic Legacy Committee will be carried out through a multi-phase project that aims to ignite the community’s imagination around the Olympic spirit. The first phase of the project – installation of the Olympic spectacular and interpretive signage – is currently being implemented. Other elements – hosting events, producing grassroots programming, developing educational platforms – will be ongoing.

Objectives

Celebrate Olympism and its values

Through visible signs displayed in the City as well as programmes dedicated to promoting the Olympic Spirit among the population, particularly its youth, St. Louis reconnects with its Olympic history and generates social cohesion and pride. Educational programmes are designed to engage the community in Olympism. Beyond embodying the Olympic Spirit, the Olympic rings are a timeless global symbol of unity and achievement. They will inspire the region to think more globally and thoughtfully about each other, and come together as a community to achieve great things. “Meet me at the rings” will surely become part of the region’s vocabulary! The participation of Olympians within the project is a lively testimony of the Olympic spirit being spread around. The St. Louis Olympic Legacy Committee hopes to use the spirit of innovation exhibited at the 1904 Games as a model to move its community ahead.

Promote the city by leveraging its affiliation with the Olympic Movement

The St. Louis Olympic Legacy Committee contributes to the promotion of the City and the region, not only by looking at the glorious Olympic past but also by using the status of Olympic City as a door-opener for the future! As being an Olympic City is an asset, the organisation aims to generate greater understanding of the value and relevance associated with the region’s place in Olympic history. The St. Louis Sports Commission and its Olympic Legacy Committee also are focused on pursuing future Olympic events that can have significant impact on the community.  These include Olympic Trials, national governing body championships, torch relays and other special events, and connecting with the 2028 Olympics in Los Angeles. In April 2019, St. Louis was awarded the 2020 U.S. Olympic Team Trials – Gymnastics.

Evaluation

The management structure has been set up in 2018. It is already a success in itself to be able to mobilise so many people and partners around this project, including Olympians. The approval of the project by the IOC in terms of use of the Olympic properties or brand for non-commercial purposes is also an evidence of success.

Going forward, a key measurement of the initiative’s success will be the level of community engagement and awareness. The Sports Commission aims to achieve greater regional, national and international understanding of St. Louis’ role in the Olympic Movement – as well as the ways the St. Louis Games changed the Olympics for the better. Active participation numbers will also be indicators of success, particularly for grassroots events and activities. For instance, it is the Sports Commission’s goal to eventually have 1,904 young people from the region run the 1904 Olympic stadium track with Jackie Joyner-Kersee and other area Olympians every Olympic Day. An ultimate measure of success will be to what extent the Olympic legacy initiative can unite and inspire St. Louisans, and encourage them to strive for the Olympic ideals.

Key Challenges

The most distant legacy
Of all Olympic cities, St. Louis actually has the most distant Olympic legacy. That’s because even though St. Louis was the III Olympiad, the previous host cities – Athens and Paris – hosted another Summer Games since 1904. The St. Louis Games predated the introduction of the famous five Olympic Rings. The emblem that represents the 1904 Games is the logo of the World’s Fair, which coincided with the Olympics in St. Louis. So because its Games were so long ago, St. Louis lacks the marks, commemoration spaces and organizational infrastructure retained by most other Olympic cities. From a historical standpoint, there are many misconceptions about the St. Louis Games. Among the St. Louis Olympic Legacy Committee’s goals is to separate fact from fiction and highlight the ways the St. Louis Games changed the Olympics for the better.

Negotiating the use of the Olympic Brand with the IOC
Because the 1904 Olympics predated the existence of the rings, St. Louis previously did not have the ability to use the symbol.
Collaborating with the IOC, with support from the WUOC and guided by Agenda 2020, the Sports Commission obtained permission to include a stamp incorporating the rings and “Site of the Olympic Games” on approved historical signage and markers. This permission was the culmination of several years working collaboratively with the IOC and WUOC to share St. Louis’ vision and proposed initiatives, and to determine acceptable steps that could be taken. On September 28, 2018, St. Louis’ first Olympic Spectacular was unveiled at Washington University, site of the Olympic Games, as part of a special ceremony featuring area Olympians and 1968 Decathlon gold medallist Bill Toomey.

Focusing on the future; not living in the past
In St. Louis, people sometimes lament that the community is too tied to its history and not forward-thinking enough. So the Olympic Legacy Project needs to overcome a potential perception that it plays into the region “living in the past.” Much effort has been undertaken to present the initiative as forward-focused. It is still critical that St. Louis embraces and celebrates its history – especially as it relates to the Olympics, something so unique and significant. And the venues, history and stories surrounding the 1904 Games need to be promoted and celebrated in a much more visible way. But to make the initiative even more impactful, the Sports Commission emphasizes that St. Louis should be recognized as an Olympic city (once an Olympic city, always an Olympic city!). It also highlights the idea that St. Louis’ Olympic legacy can be a catalyst to pursue and attract future opportunities connected to the Olympic Movement. Taken together, this all can have an enduring impact, enhancing the region’s quality of life and generating economic and social benefit.

Key learnings and recommendations

Create a long-lasting structure dedicated to managing legacy
The presence of high-level volunteers who have a passion for the Olympics and their community plus strong civic relationships can make a tremendous difference in the ability to be successful.

Mobilise Olympians and Paralympic athletes
Athletes are the lively evidence of what can be achieved through sport. The St. Louis Sports Commission managed to involve local athletes who have a national and international dimension. Athletes are best positioned to talk to the youth, teach the sense of effort, transmit Olympic values and play as role models. The celebration of the 2018 Olympic Day is a great example of the mobilisation of Olympians and Paralympic athletes at the service of the community.

Link the past and the future
Activating legacy goes far beyond looking backwards and talk about old times. Stories are used to build new memories, create local cohesion and mobilise people.

Pictos_information

 

More information

 

The full case is available in printable version on the members’ portal. 

In addition to the above description, the PDF version also gathers practical information including internal and external partners involved; finance and cost; use of the olympic brand; human resources and time; and contact details. 

The World Union of Olympic Cities’ team remains at your disposal for any further information and contact’s facilitation at info@olympiccities.org 

Additional resources can be found through the following links:

 

http://www.stlsports.org

www.stlouis1904legacy.org