The European Commission has invested much symbolic capital in sport's potential contribution to European identity, recently stating ‘that sport has a role in forging identity and bringing people together’. Yet such claims must be strongly qualified. Whilst sport is conspicuously present in...

This article traces the genesis of the principle of legacy as it has featured in Olympic discourse, and become enshrined in the expressed philosophy of the International Olympic Committee (IOC), so shaping elements in the process of bidding by cities to stage the Olympic Games, in both their...