In April 1929, the International Olympic Committee (IOC) met in Lausanne, Switzerland, to award the hosting rights for the 1932 Winter Olympics. The United States led the way, and seven candidate sites emerged to compete: Bear Mountain, Lake Placid (New York), Denver (Colorado), Duluth (Minnesota), Minneapolis (Minnesota), Lake Tahoe, and Yosemite Valley (California).
For many small mountain towns, as Foreign Policy explains in an extensive article, this was an opportunity to raise the investment capital needed to build new infrastructure and ensure a strong tourist industry in a very fragile economic era – the beginning of the Great Depression.
Godfrey Dewey, vice president of the Lake Placid Club, was the town’s chief steward of the bid. Dewey made a series of grandiose promises—among them a new Olympic-size ice rink. Then-New York Governor (and later U.S. President) Franklin D. Roosevelt wrote letters in support of the project, giving the small town the lead. It all seemed promising—until Lake Placid actually secured the hosting rights, and the turnaround began.
The Dewey skating rink would be located on the site of the Lake Placid Club, within the protected Adirondacks Forest Preserve. The Adirondacks Conservation Association sued in New York state courts, arguing that the project was unconstitutional, which states that state lands “consisting of a forest preserve… shall forever be preserved as wild forest lands.”
The NOlympics movement
A two-year legal battle ensued. Activists protested regularly and made waves in the press. Ultimately, the New York State Court of Appeals ruled that a law authorizing the construction of a racetrack, which required the destruction of 5,122 trees, was unconstitutional. Dewey and the organizing committee were forced to find a location elsewhere. They settled on a site outside the boundaries of the Forest Preserve.
This kind of pressure from environmental groups has never gone away, Foreign Policy notes. Since then, nearly every Olympic host city has had what sports sociologist Jules Boykoff calls a “NON-Olympic movement”—organized groups of people who don’t want the Games to take place in their city. Over time, these movements gained momentum and media attention, eventually reaching Olympic decision-makers and creating public pressure to make a “green” shift. But that would take decades.
When worries pushed the Games away
Fast forward to 1970. Denver was awarded the hosting rights for the 1976 Winter Olympics. It was seen as an ideal opportunity to celebrate the United States’ bicentennial. But it took less than a year for the Games to encounter intense opposition from local politicians. Months after the city was awarded the hosting rights, state Rep. Bob Jackson told the Associated Press, “We should say to the nation and the world, ‘We’re sorry, we’re concerned about the environment. We made a mistake. Take the Games somewhere else.’”
Dick Lam, another state representative, told Ski Magazine, “Every time I ask a question about the environmental impact, the people at the Olympic Committee tell me, ‘Don’t worry, we’ll take care of it. ‘” Finally, in 1972, the city backed out of the hosting bid and the Games were moved to Innsbruck, Austria, which had hosted the event in 1964 and had most of the facilities ready to go.
Germany has also seen environmental groups lobby for—and ultimately oust—the Olympics over environmental concerns. In 1983, the mayor and local tourism director of Berchtesgaden announced a bid for the 1992 Winter Olympics. Almost immediately, a local citizens’ initiative was organized against him, and he withdrew it.
The first “green” Olympic athletes
Despite repeated pressure from environmental groups to slow down, move or stop the Games, it wasn’t until the 1990s that the Games themselves took action on this front. In 1992, the same year that the word “sustainability” entered the global lexicon at the United Nations Earth Summit in Brazil, the IOC was facing challenges after the Albertville Winter Games were described as an “environmental disaster.”
The 1994 Winter Olympics in Lillehammer, Norway, are considered the first attempt to create a “green” Olympic Games. Changes included a redesigned running track that minimized impacts on a nearby bird sanctuary, a plan to prioritize the use of renewable building materials, energy efficiency upgrades to venues, and a recycling program throughout.