Incidentally, most Asian countries dominate indoor sports such as judo, table tennis and badminton. Thus, if India has to improve its medal haul, it makes sense to focus on excelling in a few sports. At the London Olympics, for instance, there were a total 47 athletics events for both men and women, with a total of 141 medals up for grabs. Both also have the largest number of medals on offer. At the London Olympics, the US won close to 60% of its medals in athletics and swimming. Most countries win the bulk of their medals in a few sports. Moreover, he argues that a strong, central government is also better able to singlemindedly channel resources towards long-term investments like sports.Īlso Read: Olympic Games: The conundrum of playing the host Bian attributes this to the fact that international sporting success is important for totalitarian regimes to boost nationalistic sentiment. Xun Bian from the Illinois Wesleyan University wrote in Predicting Olympic Medal Counts: the Effects of Economic Development on Olympic Performance that countries at opposite ends of the spectrum on two counts, political freedom and civil liberties, tend to do the best in Olympics, with the relationship between medals and these two factors forming a U-shaped curve. Cuba, Soviet Union and China have done well in Olympics. North Korea has won twice as many medals as India (since the beginning of participation at the Olympics, and until the London 2012 games). They justify their finding by pointing out that the change in the ratio of medals per athlete for host countries both before and after the Olympics events is not statistically significant. For instance, they note that in the summer games, on average, the host country’s team fields 162.2 more athletes than in the previous summer games. In Hosting the Olympic Games: An Overstated Advantage in Sports History, they find that host countries typically field much larger contingents as the qualification criteria is significantly relaxed for them. However, the theory of a host advantage has been recently debunked by Stephen Pettigrew and Danyel Reiche, from the Department of Government, Harvard University, and the Department of Political Studies and Public Administration, American University of Beirut, respectively. For instance, at the Sochi winter Olympics, champion skater Yuna Kim was defeated by Russian skater Adelina Sotnikova, a decision that was widely criticized as one where the judges were influenced by the cheering. Bernard and Busse find that host countries win an additional 1.8% of medals, and attribute this to lowered costs of attendance, facilities, and the influence of spectators on judging (especially in sports such as figure skating and gymnastics where subjective judgement is involved). Only 23 countries have ever hosted the Olympics: the US, which is also has the highest medal tally in Olympics history, has hosted the game the maximum number of times (eight). They point out that large, wealthy nations (with high population and per capita GDP) are also more likely to be hosts, and thus gain a double advantage. They attribute this advantage to lower transportation costs and climatic advantages. Ali found that host nations on average win 24.87 more medals than non-host nations, and that neighbours of host nations do well too. In Coming to Play or Coming to Win: Participation and Success at the Olympic Games, Daniel K. It’s been widely observed that host countries typically boost their medal haul. Busse from the Haas School of Business, UC Berkeley argue that top medal winning countries exhibit both high per capita incomes and a large population.Īlso Read: How the Olympic Games have become more inclusive Bernard from the Tuck School of Business at Dartmouth and Meghan R. In their influential paper, Who Wins the Olympic Games: Economic Resources and Medal Totals, Andrew B. These countries-the USA, the erstwhile Soviet Union, Germany, Great Britain, France, Italy, Sweden, Russia, China and erstwhile East Germany-are mostly wealthy nations that have seen sustained state investment in nurturing talent. Sports Reference lists 10 countries that have won the most medals at the summer Olympics (from the inaugural 1896 games in Athens to the London Olympics of 2012).
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