Description
According to Pierre de Coubertin, the founder of the modern Olympic Games, this exciting event should not only represent a major international competition but should celebrate a happy marriage between sports and culture (Osborn, 2008). The 2012 Cultural Olympiad is therefore an important component of the London Olympics. On the first day that the Cultural Olympiad was launched, the British government promised to deliver a continuing program of projects and events, running up to the 2012 Games that would celebrate the various faces of British culture; the aim being to promote the Olympic values and to encourage everybody’s involvement. With ten projects and more than five hundred events including the World Shakespeare Festival and the Unlimited Project, which aims to celebrate disability, art and culture, Lord Coe, Chairman of the London Organising Committee, was confident that the Cultural Olympiad would “Leave a legacy of cultural engagement in communities across our country” (BBC website, 2008).
