Our team at the University of Lausanne has been getting some attention since we published a rather large paper on the sustainability of the Olympic Games from 1992 to 2020. Martin Müller, our team leader, was on Swiss television recently, and as I write, my colleague David Gogishvili is being interviewed by an influential architecture and design magazine (link to follow, when it’s out). Partly this attention is due to the controversial nature of our findings, but I think the attention is amplified because of the upcoming Tokyo Olympics.

It is always gratifying to have media attention for your work, but I have to admit that it feels different when you yourself are fond of the outlet. So I admit I was a bit starstruck when I was approached by Anthony Kuhn from National Public Radio to talk about the sustainability claims of Tokyo 2020/2021. NPR! I may or may not have taken a few canvas totes with me to Switzerland when we moved.

I had a great time during the interview. It lasted almost an hour, and I wasn’t the only person he spoke to, and all of that got squeezed down into a three minute broadcast piece, with an accompanying article that goes into more depth. I can’t imagine how much work it takes to accomplish this. Being concise isn’t easy, and distilling a compelling story from so much information must take a crazy amount of work. Anyway: I think the story is important and it’s very well done, and I’m completely delighted that I got to participate.

You can listen to the broadcast and read the article here. Thanks!