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The three phases of the institution of the Olympic volunteers I
Volunteers are considered today one of the main factors that determine the organizational and economic success of the Olympic Games. It is  characteristic that in the 2000 Sydney Olympics more than 50,000 volunteers offered their services to the staging of the Games. The 1984 Los Angeles Olympics are considered the milestone organization in the development of the institution of the Olympic volunteers, while in the 1992 Barcelona Olympics the issue of the volunteers was included in the official reports of the organizing committee as one of the main fields of its activity. Of course, this does not mean that the presence of volunteers in the Olympic Games is a phenomenon that appears in the 1980s and especially in the 1990s. Although the number of volunteers, their special characteristics and the areas of their involvement in the organization of the Olympic Games have changed in the course of time from 1896 until today, their presence is obvious and significant as early as from the first organizations. In fact, we could discern three different periods in the history of the Olympic Games, stressing in each one of them the extent as well as the particular characteristics of those who contributed to the realization of the Games.
In general, the presence of volunteers in the preparation and staging of the Games develops historically along with the development of the Olympic institutions and the particular significance attached to sport in modern times. Therefore, in the first organizations (1896-1908), that is when the Olympic Games had not yet acquired prestige, the presence of volunteers was limited, it was not recorded in the official reports and consisted in the assistance provided by people who could be described as the pioneers of sport in their countries. They were the same people who contributed to the spread of sport through the constitution of sports institutions (e.g. sports associations, national and international federations). From the first organizations until the mid-1980s, when the current profile of the volunteers was shaped, the increasing needs engendered by the phenomenal growth of the Olympic Games were met differently: on the one hand through the mobilization of organized groups such as the scouts (and of government young activists in the cases of countries with authoritarian regimes) and on the other hand through the army.
Since 1984 a different model of development of the Olympic volunteers has been preferred. This model does not use existing networks and organizations (scouts, the army) but creates new networks of citizens on the occasion of the Olympic Games. Again it calculates on individual offer, as was the case in the first organizations, but now volunteers are numerous and they do not necessarily belong to the social strata that are involved in the creation and diffusion of the sports institutions (associations, federations etc.). On the contrary, the volunteers movement in its today's form is based on the mobilization of the entire society. The organization of the Olympics is a project of national importance for every country. The organizing committee has the role to conduct the actions that the society is invited to undertake, through the volunteers, with a view to a successful organization of the Olympics. A decisive point in this development was the economic crisis that hit the Olympic Games in the late 1960s and especially in the 1970s. The Los Angeles Olympics owe their economic success not only to the management of the television broadcast rights and to the sponsors, but also to the almost 30,000 volunteers that the organizing committee put to the service of the Games.
Ever since, volunteers have constituted one of the principal parameters of the "human resources" in the calculation of the cost of each organization. The increasing significance of the volunteers in the economic and organizational success of the Games since the 1980s has created the need for the organization of special training programmes, which begin a long time before the Games and focus on the specialized roles that the volunteers are called upon to fulfil. From the part of the volunteers, who are young people for the most part, participation in the Olympic organization, although it does not provide immediate economic benefits, is regarded as an opportunity to acquire skills and make acquaintances that facilitate access to the labour market after the termination of the Games. The expansion of the institution of volunteers in the Olympic Games is associated with the development of this movement in many spheres of social life during the last two decades, especially in western societies, a movement that is governed by the idea of contribution to society.
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