‘War and Peace’ at the 1980 Moscow and 2014 Sochi Olympics: The Role of Hard and Soft Power in Russian Identity
Journal: The International Journal of the History of Sport
Year: 2018

© 2019, © 2019 Informa UK Limited, trading as Taylor & Francis Group. Russia’s (and the USSR’s) use of sports mega-events (SMEs) makes this BRICS country (Brazil, Russia, India, China, and South Africa) not only an outlier among emerging states, but also among key SME hosts generally. Both the historic Moscow Olympics (1980) and the more recent hosting of the 2014 Sochi Winter Olympics provide evidence that Russia has, on both occasions, focussed on geopolitical priorities using hard power (mili