A book, recently published by a West Virginia University faculty member, has been incorporated into the Olympic World Library (OWL), housed within the Olympic Studies Centre (OSC) in Lausanne, Switzerland.
The book “Sport mega-events in emerging economies: The South American Games of Santiago 2014” was part of an ambitious project by Gonzalo A. Bravo, sport management associate professor, WVU College of Physical Activity and Sport Sciences.
The project, which took four years to complete, involved the participation of three other researchers, David J. Shonk, James Madison University, and Jorge Silva and Silvana Gonzalez-Messina, both from Santiago, Chile.
According to Bravo, the book is unique in the sense that it is one the first scholarly pieces that closely examines the extent and impact of an event of sizeable magnitude held in a country with little history of hosting sport mega-events (SMEs).
“In terms of size and scope, the South American Games are smaller than the traditional sport-mega events like the Olympics and the Men’s FIFA World Cup, but they retain a lot of the characteristics of the larger events,” Bravo said.
The literature on SMEs is abundant for those hosted in developed nations, but less is known on smaller scale events hosted in less developed countries.
“We believe that our work makes a significant contribution to the body of knowledge because we know very little on how emerging economies deal with these events nor what triggers countries to host them,” Bravo explained.
Bravo explains that the OSC, which is supported by the International Olympic Committee (IOC), represents the primary study center regarding Olympic knowledge. The OSC incorporates the OWL.
“Both the OSC and OWL are the place where scholars and researchers from all corners of the world go to find information or rare archives on the Olympic Games,” he said.
While the South American Games are not the Olympics, they are part of many other sport mega-events within the Olympic umbrella. Bravo’s involvement with the project was, in fact, through the OSC.
“It was through the OSC’s newsletter that I knew that they were looking for proposals on sport mega-events. I was glad that our proposal was selected after a few blind reviews from experts in that field. Now, I am even more excited to know that OSC has included our work into the Olympic World Library,” said Bravo.