Public-Private Global Security Assemblages (London 2012)

On July 6, 2005, London was selected as the first host city to be awarded the Olympic Games for the third time, solidifying its prominent role in modern Olympic and international sporting history. Matthew Llewellyn (2011) offers a useful analysis of this history. Great Britain held local, national and empire Games as early as the 17th century and also contributed to the founding of the modern Olympics. In spite of early indifference on the part of the government as well as the public, the British Olympic Association was founded in 1905 which made Great Britain an important participant in the pivotal 1906 Intermediate Games in Athens. This helped London to be selected to replace Rome as the host city for the 1908 Games in which Great Britain accounted for more than one-third of the participating athletes and received the greatest number of medals. As discussed by Richard Pound in Chapter 2 of this book, the four decades between London’s first and second hosting of the Olympics were marked by an ambiguous relationship between Great Britain and the Olympics, as the Games were canceled once during World War I and twice during the World War II. In 1948 London held the first Olympics in 12 years at the time when the city was still recovering from the devastation of the war, people lacked housing, and food was still rationed.