Many governments still perceive that hosting major sporting events commands huge national prestige, but that assessment may be sorely tested in February with the mounting challenges facing the Winter Olympics in Beijing. This is the latest sporting contest to be plagued by political and wider risks, with controversies underlining the massive challenges associated with such events. This is not least given the huge operating costs associated with running them, including maintaining security. The success of the Beijing Olympics, which opens on Friday, is threatened by COVID-19 outbreaks across the host nation. And it comes in the wake of Tuesday’s Lunar New Year, China’s annual travel holiday that will see an estimated 1 billion trips made. Until last Thursday, Beijing had only recorded infections with the delta variant, with no trace of omicron cases for three days in a row. However, the number of cases linked to the Olympics has now risen to more than 100, despite China’s “zero virus” policy. The Games are also facing a diplomatic boycott by numerous Western countries, including the US, UK and Australia, centered on concerns about human rights in Xinjiang. This heated topic is one that many nongovernmental organizations are also focusing on by targeting big brands that have endorsed or sponsored the Winter Olympics. While the challenges Beijing faces are particularly prominent, they are by no means unique. Last year’s Summer Olympics in Japan, for example, saw a state of emergency in Tokyo and nine other regions for weeks beforehand to try to control the pandemic. Meanwhile, overseas fans were barred from attending the event, which had been postponed by a full year. The coronavirus crisis is only the latest example of the health, economic, political and other risks and controversies afflicting such events. Football’s 2016 European Championships were awarded to France with great fanfare in 2010, but they took place in a country operating under an official state of emergency following the 2015 terrorist attacks in Paris, which forced the French authorities to deploy some 90,000 police, soldiers and security guards. The success of the Beijing Olympics, which opens on Friday, is threatened by COVID-19 outbreaks across the host nation. Andrew Hammond The 2016 Summer Olympics in Brazil also offered a stark case study. When Rio de Janeiro won the right to host the Games in 2009, the economy was booming and the country enjoyed significant prestige as a leading emerging market within the so-called BRICS club. By 2016, however, Brazil was mired in a political crisis surrounding the impeachment of then-President Dilma Rousseff and a worst recession in decades, which forced significant cuts to the Olympic budget. Further, more than 100 prominent doctors and professors wrote an open letter to the World Health Organization asking for the Games to be postponed or moved from Brazil “in the name of public health” in light of the country’s Zika virus outbreak. Prior to COVID-19, Zika was the worst health crisis facing Brazil since at least 1918. The problems affecting both of these 2016 events also underline the expense of hosting such sporting extravaganzas. For instance, the investment required for modernizing the Euro 2016 stadiums alone was estimated to be €1.6 billion ($1.7 billion), which is greater than the reported target of €1.4 billion for broadcasting rights and sponsorship income. The mismatch between revenue and expenditure was even starker with the Rio Olympics. Brazil spent at least $10 billion on the event and probably much more in practice — significantly in excess of the revenue the Games generated, especially as many tourists were put off from traveling to the country because of Zika. So, despite the fact that hosting major sporting events continues to be seen as a source of national pride, growing evidence indicates they do not generally provide a substantial boost to national economies from stimuli like capital investment and tourism. For instance, many of the visitors tend to come from the host country, whose spending often simply displaces money that would have gone on other domestic leisure services. Moreover, the legacy value can be limited, with many expensive facilities simply becoming white elephants that fall into disuse. Despite all these pitfalls, however, there remains no shortage of cities wanting to host the 2036 Summer Olympics, following-up on Paris in 2024, Los Angeles in 2028 and Brisbane in 2032. And numerous countries have already expressed a firm interest in hosting the 2030 Winter Olympics, succeeding Milan and Cortina d’Ampezzo in 2026. For the foreseeable future at least, what this collectively underlines is that the perception that hosting such sporting events is a major symbol of national prestige will continue to trump the headaches that can come with staging them. However, that tide may yet turn in the opposite direction, with the next fortnight in Beijing likely to be key to that calculus. • Andrew Hammond is an Associate at LSE IDEAS at the London School of Economics. Disclaimer: Views expressed by writers in this section are their own and do not necessarily reflect Arab News" point-of-view