SPECIAL FEATURES OF HOLDING OLYMPIC REFERENDUM IN CALGARY

Abstract

The political institution of the Olympic referenda as to hosting the Olympic Games and later the Paralympics has a history of more than half a century. This European-originated procedure is increasingly being used by democratic countries of the world to make final decisions about implementing their own Olympic projects. The state authorities, local self-governments, residents of cities and regions initiate, and the International Olympic Committee (IOC) is forced to support the holding of such referenda. Respectivelly, the referendum participants have and express different reasons, the ideological confrontation between them is constantly growing and social media are actively involved in this process. It is appropriate that transnational Olympic resistance movements have appeared and are taking actions in the contemporary social and political conditions, and in the summer of 2018 their first summit took place in Tokyo. The main arguments of opponents against hosting the Olympic Games at the referenda include the following points such as an exhausting economic burden on the host country, so-called the competition of budgets; nature-oriented and environmental challenges arising during the period of preparation, holding the Games and further use of the Olympic facilities; commercialization of sport that distorted the idea of sport as a place of noble competition; the problems related to the IOC weight and activities, namely they are corruption, the groundless and excessive list of IOC requirements to the Olympic host countries; the violation of continental rotation policy as to hosting the Olympic Games and also safety aspects and the migration crisis. All these components of the problem clearly manifested themselves during the referendum about hosting of 2026 Winter Olympics and Paralympics in Calgary (Canada) in 2018. It is proven that the special features of this plebiscite are high turnout of the citizens, change-over and support of the Olympics hosting opponents by the considerable amount of the city officials, carrying on the campaign through ultimatums and strong criticism of IOC authorities and activities.