This book examines the environmental sustainability record of Winter Olympics host regions, tracing the gap between ambitious pledges made at bid stage and the outcomes actually delivered. Focusing on Vancouver 2010, Sochi 2014, and Milano–Cortina 2026, it reveals the structural, political, and spatial forces that shape, and too often undermine, environmental performance at the world’s most demanding sporting event. Drawing on spatial analysis, planning documentation, and post-event assessments, the book offers a rigorous comparative framework for evaluating mega-event sustainability claims. It traces the environmental history of the Winter Olympics from early controversies to contemporary IOC reform efforts, examines how geography and scale shape sustainability outcomes, and analyses the shifting geographies of host city selection. The book offers tools to critically assess bid documentation and legacy reports, understand the limits of Agenda 2020 and its successor reforms, and situate current planning decisions within a longer trajectory of environmental negotiation and compromise. This book is essential reading for researchers and students in urban planning, environmental studies, geography, and sports management. It is also valuable for policy-makers, planners, and sustainability professionals engaged in mega-event planning, as well as informed general readers interested in the environmental dimensions of global sporting events
