By means of an event study of stock market reactions to the announcement of the Olympic Games host cities, we find a significant and positive announcement effect of hosting the Summer Games, with a cumulative abnormal return of about 2% within a few days. We do not find any significant results for the Winter Games. Neither do we detect a significant impact when bidders lose the competition. Our...

BACKGROUND Mass gatherings, such as the Olympic and Paralympic Games, represent an enormous logistical challenge for the host city. Health service planners must deliver routine and emergency services and, in recent Games, health legacy initiatives, for the local and visiting population. However there is little evidence to support their planning decisions. We therefore evaluated the strategic he...

Organisers of the Rio 2016 Olympic Games have said that the chances of anyone becoming infected with the Zika virus during the competition, held in Brazil in August and September, are almost zero. The numbers of Zika cases in Rio de Janeiro have dropped sharply in recent weeks and will fall to almost nothing during the dry winter months of the Olympic and Paralympic Games, said officials (fig)....

UNLABELLED The lay press, scientists, and physicians appear to believe that gymnasts are continually getting smaller and that their "smallness" is a health risk. PURPOSE To assess the historical changes in the size and age of the US women's Olympic gymnastics teams from 1956 to 2008. METHODS The official records from the US Olympic Committee and USA Gymnastics of Olympic team members were a...

Gender verification: a concept whose time has come and passed? Gender verification was hardly an issue at the inception of the ancient Olympic games in Greece. Competition was restricted to men, and the competitors entered the stadium unclad. No doubt existed about their gender. However, with the addition of women to Olympic competition in 1912, concerns were raised about the possibility of men...