A case study investigating the impact of the London 2012 Olympic and Paralympic Games on participation in two non-traditional English sports, Judo and Fencing.

The hosting of the London 2012 Olympic and Paralympic Games (LOPG)

brought with it detailed legacy plans aiming to ‘Inspire a Generation’. The idea

that hosting a sports mega-event will encourage the host population to engage in

more physical activity is commonly used by governments to justify the large

investments they make. The aim of this research paper was to investigate the

impact that hosting the 2012 Games had on grass-root sports participation within

the host nation. This paper focuses on two non-traditional English sports, Fencing

and Judo and investigated the changes in mass sports participation. The

membership rate analysis of our sample highlighted an overall increase in participation

between 2007 and 2013, in both Judo and Fencing. The data gathered

from the interviews with the head office staff at the National Governing Bodies

(NGBs) and local club coaches suggested that the grass-root participation programmes

were the most effective way of increasing participation, rather than the

reliance, solely on the inspiration effect from hosting the LOPG itself. The study

highlighted the importance of strengthening communication between local voluntary

clubs and the NGB, to ensure sports could promote themselves and capitalise

on this global sporting phenomenon, which provided unprecedented media

coverage and opportunities for these non-traditional sports. This case study provides

initial results relating to the effect that a major international multi-sport

event can have in the development of non-traditional sports in the host population,

in terms of membership variations, participation programmes and organisational

dynamics.