China’s Decisiveness in Olympic Bids: Leveraging International Sporting Mega-Events to Improve Beijing’s Odds of Success

Through reviewing the 1993 Shanghai East Asian Games, the 2001 Beijing Summer Universiade and the 2014 Nanjing Summer Youth Olympics, this paper provides an in-depth account of how the organization and celebration of China’s international sporting events were decisively leveraged to improve Beijing’s chance of success in the three Olympic bids, respectively for the 2000 Summer Games, the 2008 Summer Games, and the 2022 Winter Games. The findings show China’s nationwide determination to entitle the capital city to hold the Summer and Winter Olympics as well as the synergy of its central and local authorities in handling international sporting affairs. They also reveal the keys that enable China to have become one of the most reliable spots on the planet for staging sporting mega-events and to gain long-lasing prestige in the global sports community.