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‘Offering something back to society?’ L earning disability, ethnicity and sporting legacy: hosting the S pecial O lympics GB S ummer G ames in L eicester, 2009
Author(s) -
Williams John,
Carter Neil
Publication year - 2014
Publication title -
british journal of learning disabilities
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 0.633
H-Index - 39
eISSN - 1468-3156
pISSN - 1354-4187
DOI - 10.1111/bld.12031
Subject(s) - ethnic group , appeal , event (particle physics) , psychology , political science , law , quantum mechanics , physics
Accessible summary This article is about research on hosting major sporting events involving people with learning disabilities. It focuses on the S pecial O lympics G reat B ritain N ational S ummer G ames, which were held in L eicester in July 2009. The 2009 S ummer G ames raised significant legacy issues concerning ethnicity, both for the hosts (the city of L eicester) and the governing body, S pecial O lympics G reat B ritain. The event also provided important insights into wider attitudes towards people with learning disabilities held by the general public.Summary In 2009 the city of L eicester hosted the S pecial O lympics G reat B ritain N ational S ummer G ames. Around 2500 athletes with learning disabilities competed in 21 sports. This article argues that this sporting mega‐event had important potential legacy consequences for the hosts, the governing body – S pecial O lympics G reat B ritain ( SOGB ) – and also for wider attitudes towards people with learning disabilities. We are mainly concerned here with questions of ethnicity around S pecial O lympics G reat B ritain ( SOGB ) and the specific motivations for staging this event in the E ast M idlands. We argue that the hosts mobilised a set of quite unusual rhetorics and legacy aims in its appeal to local citizens, and that SOGB favoured Leicester because of the organisation's urgent need to modernise in terms of its urban reach, ethnicity and age profiles. We end by briefly assessing the evidence that SOGB achieved some of its goals and the extent to which the L eicester public embraced S pecial O lympics and athletes with learning disabilities.