The politics of the Olympic Games

The Olympic Games is all about sport – but it is unavoidably also all about the politics. So two days after the opening ceremony, the IfG team assembled its crack team of sporting fanatics to discuss the links between power and the Olympic Games.

From claiming credit to trying to duck the blame, prime ministers, presidents and mayors are as involved as any athlete – signing off on bids to host the games, settling on multi-billion budgets, being booed in the stands, and keeping fingers crossed that everything runs smoothly. So just how political are the Paris 2024 Olympics Games? And how do they compare with what has come before – including the 1908, 1948 and 2012 games in London – and what might follow in Los Angeles, Brisbane and the games of the future?

Podcaster, academic, historian and author David Runciman returns to Inside Briefing for a fascinating tour through the ever-changing relationship between sport and the Olympics that has defined over a century of successful (and not so successful) games.