The challenges of researching event legacies: Investigating the volunteering legacies of the Sydney 2000 and London 2012 Olypmic games

Consideration of 'legacies' is still a relatively recent phenomenon within the history of the Olympic movement. Indeed the International Olympic Committee (IOC) only designated legacies as part of the Olympic Charter (IOC, 2007) following momentum surrounding the concept in the wake of the Sydney 2000 Games (Scott, 2014). Research investigating legacies is likewise in an emergent phase with Dickson, Benson and Blackman (2011, p. 286) noting that - despite interest at local, regional, national and international levels, an agenda for legacy research is yet to gain broad acceptability‖. This paper contributes to the agenda by exploring the challenges of researching event legacies comparatively and over an extended time period drawing on insights gained from the conduct of a research project investigating the volunteering legacies of two Olympic Games: Sydney 2000 and London 2012. A preliminary set of challenges is discussed, which may inform the conduct of future legacy studies.