Globalisation does not produce homogenisation; quite the contrary. Globalisation
reveals the inadequacy of sameness as communities assert their uniqueness,
although this process is uneven and is often produced by conservative impulses
launched from above. In discussing the concept of ‘glocalisation’, Roland
Robertson argues that what is known as the ‘local’ is ‘in large degree constructed
on a trans- or super-local basis’.23 The assertion that global sport can yield a
greater opportunity to re-image the local seems crucial to the importance of
hosting prestigious sporting events (see Black and van der Westhiuzen in this
issue). As the most fully global example of a localised event, the Olympic
Summer Games is championed as a means to entirely reinventing a city, as has
been argued in the cases of Barcelona 1992, Atlanta 1996 and Sydney 2000.