48OLYMPIC REVIEW OLYMPIC RESEARCH CORNER when a country's National Olympic Committee ( NOC) announces the official candidacy of the city for hosting the Games, and ending two years after the Games. Impacts can be seen early on in this process. Major changes begin to occur in the host region with the awarding of the Games, but some occur even during the bid phase. Whereas for most people the Games are a distant event experienced mainly through communications media, in the host region the event is local, and the changes prior to, during and after the Games can be significant and have long lasting effects. Changes would be expected to occur in the host region even without the Games, so the role of OGI is to identify those specific changes directly associated with the Games, focusing in three spheres: economic ( e. g. employment, tourism), environmental ( e. g. air quality), and social ( e. g. housing). Two main principles have guided the work of the UBC Team. First, we respect the IOC's admonition that there is no " single best way" to measure the impacts of the Games. Host countries and regions often have unique attributes and interests, and these factors play an important role in focusing the OGI research process and shaping priorities, variously expanding and narrowing the scope of the indicators. In addition to responding to local contexts, OGI methodology is also understood to be temporally dynamic and to evolve over time as measurement tools and standards develop through research experience with present and future Games. A second and related principle is a commitment to scientific rigour and objectivity through using best available and proven methodologies and best available data sources. This framework embraces innovation and leaves open the possibility for change through adaptation to local conditions and contributions by different hosts over time, while ensuring the standard of work is always high. Two examples from Vancouver 2010 can help to illustrate this process, mainly the adoption of a " bundling" approach to indicators and the use of before- and- after comparisons in other cities as " controls". At the most basic level, indicators can be inventoried using numeric and written data, and the results can be sorted and the impacts summarised based on the performance of each indicator. The UBC approach is to " bundle" together indicators that in combination are likely to be more sensitive to overall shifts in investment and public interest, and that can help to give a more holistic picture of changes resulting from the Games. For example, changes logically would be linked to investments dedicated to winning the right to host the Games, to leveraging the opportunities of the Games, and to hosting the Games themselves. The research team assessed the Games- related policies, programmes, and initiatives that were undertaken or modified by the various levels of government in Canada dating back to 1998 ( when it was announced that Vancouver would bid for the 2010 Games). Between 1998 and 2008, 50 such changes were found, and these were in turn linked to OGI indicators most likely to be affected by the changes. We called these " primary" indicators. Several themes were identified by this process and each bundle of primary indicators was subsequently analysed and assessed for their consistency with sustainability. A difficulty for event impact studies is to determine whether an observed change is a result of the event itself or of a " normal" trend that would have happened anyway. In the case of Vancouver 2010, many factors stood to affect overall trends including the global economic downturn. A solution was to identify " control" cities that would be similar to Vancouver except for the Games ( while readily acknowledging that it is difficult to find control sites that are an exact match for the impact site). The most appropriate method for this type of analysis is called " before and after control impact", or BACI. BACI tests for differences in change between impact and control sites before and after an event ( the " event" in this case was the selection of Vancouver as a host city). In order to provide a standard scale for comparison across cities, indicator data were " normalised" where possible, for example, by using population as the denominator. Changes in Vancouver were compared with changes taking place in the Canadian cities of Calgary, Edmonton and Victoria. The Greater Vancouver region was compared with the Greater Toronto Area ( GTA). The province of British Columbia ( BC) ( where Vancouver is located) was compared with the Canadian province of Alberta ( and occasionally to Ontario). Canada was usefully compared to the United States. An example of this method would be to compare the number of tourists visiting Greater Vancouver and the GTA, before and after the selection of Vancouver as an Olympic host. Since GTA is not affected by the selection, a deviation from the before- selection trends between the two regions is potentially attributable to this event. An example from the economic sphere illustrates our overall analytical approach. We identified four key government investments designed to boost economic activity in the host region. Featured among these was the South East False Creek Olympic Village CBA ( Community Benefits Agreement) which was signed in 2007 by the City of Vancouver, the Athlete's Village developer ( Millennium), and an inner- city business society ( BOB). The CBA was created to provide 100 jobs, C$ 750,000 in training, and C$ 15 million in local goods and services procurement for the inner city of Vancouver, an area where economic development is sorely needed. We created an indicator bundle entitled " Economic Activity" to capture these investments RightOlympic venues can have an impact on all fields of sustainability - environmental, economic and social Below rightThe Games should leave a legacy for the Host City's young people

with respect to community development. The modern Olympic Games were designed to have positive impacts on the host region and beyond. Their founder, Pierre de Coubertin, hoped that the Games would enhance physical education and friendly international competition. The IOC developed OGI as a means to monitor, analyse, and report on potential impacts of the Games in the context of the host city/ region/ country, especially with respect to sustainability, a central tenet of the IOC. OGI needs to be responsive to local conditions and at the same time to employ innovative and rigorous scientific approaches in order to identify Games impacts. The comprehensive approach taken by UBC of policy- driven analysis of bundles of indicators and comparative analysis of impacts in control cities is helping to advance OGI as a measurement tool that can support the sustainability of the Games over the long run. ¦ Robert VanWynsberghe PhD is a Lecturer in the Faculty of Education at the University of British Columbia ( UBC). His research expertise is in sustainability and the related areas of social movements and capacity building. He produced this report working with Mariana Gatzeva PhD, Post- Doctoral Fellow, UBC, Brenda Kwan MSc, Senior Policy Analyst, Olympic Games Impact Project, UBC and Robert Sparks PhD, Director, School of Human Kinetics, UBC. OLYMPIC REVIEW49 using four economic indicators to assess government spending, employment, and revenue. Through a BACI- based exploration of alternative hypotheses, our findings revealed that the number of related companies grew faster in Metro Vancouver than in the Greater Toronto Area ( in Ontario). This data was combined with the identified investments to put forward a plausible argument for an upsurge of economic activity related to the candidature and subsequent selection of Vancouver as an Olympic host as the driving factor. Whether this trend toward improved economic performance will continue through the 2010 Games and beyond will provide further evidence for the potential Games impact on the economy. It is noteworthy that this bundle also relates to potential impacts in the social sphere