Legacy of 2008 Olympics goes beyond economics

When Beijing was awarded the 2008 Olympic Games in July 2001, a seven-year journey began, culminating in the grand opening in the iconic Bird's Nest stadium on Aug 8, 2008.

The seven-year period between awarding the Olympics and their opening allows the hosts to develop and implement their vision of the Games.

The legacy of the 2008 Beijing Olympic Games must be seen in the socio-political and economic context of China. In China's bid for the Games, then President Jiang Zemin highlighted the opportunity to advance the Olympic spirit and deepen cultural exchanges between China and the world. Beijing proposed three major themes: "Green Olympics", "High-Tech Olympics" and "People's Olympics".

The concept of "People's Olympics" sought to redefine humanism as a core Chinese cultural value, aiming to construct a moral order to counterbalance the materialism in China's rapid march to modernization and offer an alternative to the commercialization of the Games. China sought to reinterpret Olympian principles, enriching the Olympic spirit and promoting global harmony.

While economic impacts often dominate discussions about the legacy of the Olympics, the intangible impacts, though difficult to measure, are equally important.

The Games were a massive undertaking with an organizing budget of 20.5 billion yuan ($3 billion) in revenue and 19.34 billion yuan in expenditures, yielding a surplus of over 1 billion yuan.

Twelve of the 37 venues were specifically constructed for the event. The Beijing Olympics were the first to offer full digital coverage globally, allowing hundreds of millions of viewers across the world to follow the action online.

Three intangible legacies of the Games stand out: health, sports policy and education. The organizing committee introduced the concept of "Olympic Health Legacy" and established a system to evaluate the impact of a mass event on the health of the host population.

These included changes in health behaviors of individuals, improvements in public health services and enhancements in the quality of the external hygienic environment.

From 2001 to 2007, 140 billion yuan was spent on environmental improvement, which was far more than the $12.2 billion promised in the bidding reports.

The Games elevated the role of sport in China and enhanced the status of mass sport. From a policy development perspective, China's Olympics experience streamlined policy-making and planning for mega events.

The coordination required by the Games fostered policy coherence across public, voluntary and private sectors, exemplified by Beijing's "dual-city" benefit, which reduced venue costs for the 2022 Winter Olympics.

A great deal of organizational learning also took place, with Chinese sports organizations engaging with national and international sports federations, leading to improved sport governance.

Aug 8 was declared National Fitness Day, when public sports facilities are required to open free of charge to the public, promoting public health and sports participation.

Significant investments were made in mass sport from the lottery public welfare fund, with funding increasing over time.

The Games relied on tens of thousands of volunteers, supported by a large network of "city volunteers" stationed across Beijing, marking a cultural shift toward a formalized civic volunteer network that remains active in major public events.

Public investments, organizational learning, cultural change, and improved policy coherence have advanced sport in China, embracing social and economic values beyond health benefits and political gains.

Education was the chief mechanism for promoting Olympian values. The Beijing 2008 Olympics Education Programme was the largest of its kind in the Games history, integrating Olympian values — excellence, friendship and respect — into the curriculum of over 400,000 schools across China.

The program had three main components, including the Heart-to-Heart international school pairings, Olympic Values Education Programme teaching resources and curriculum integration, and the model schools program across China. It reached approximately 400 million children and left a lasting cultural and civic legacy for China's younger generation.

The Olympics do not belong to a country or an institution, but to all humanity.

When a city hosts them, it enters into a contract: the Olympic Movement allows the host city to invest the accumulated cultural capital of the Games, and, in return, the city promises to deliver certain legacies.

Olympic legacy is not automatically established. Beijing successfully leveraged the opportunities presented by the Games by mobilizing the energy of society to deliver lasting benefits.

The author is a professor of sport management at Brunel University in London, UK.

The views don't necessarily reflect those of China Daily.