2024-08-15 06:32:50
The 17-day Olympic celebrations have just ended and it’s time to take stock. “Medal Table”The suspense that has kept us in suspense for more than two weeks will be used by certain sports federations and certain governments to praise their actions. It has become a geopolitical tool and an element Soft Powerused internationally to demonstrate a country’s strength, and used internally to praise government policies.
We can also see that when analyzing the results for different countries,Russia absentBy the way, there is also Belarus, which has been silently or almost ignored. The first took fourth place in the “medal table” of the Olympic Games in London 2012 and Rio 2016, and in 2021 took fifth place under the name of the “Russian Olympic Committee”.
Paradoxically, this universal event that should bring humanity together is a shocking moment of chauvinism. Flags, anthems, jerseys, selection systems, the composition of the jury… all of this is a constant reminder of the world’s web of nations. In this concert of nationalism, the European Union does not exist.
I will not pretend here to analyze all the results using sophisticated tools. I will just compare the distribution of the three sports that have been at the basis of the Olympic program since the reform of the Olympic Games in 1896 and are considered “universal”: athletics, artistic gymnastics and swimming (excluding diving and swimming).
Athletics, the most global sport
The medal ranking is often discussed, its methodology is simplistic because it only considers the top three events, and is inconclusive because it puts all sports on an equal footing, both individually and collectively, regardless of whether we are On site alone or with a teamThe unofficial global meta-competition uses the number of gold medals as the primary criterion. This puts French swimmer Léon Marchand ahead of Brazil and Ukraine, who each won four individual gold medals in swimming, compared to the three each of those countries.
Therefore, if we really want to evaluate the performance of countries, it seems necessary to use more relevant criteria. Here I use the results of the finalists, which we call Placement table. It takes into account the top eight places in each event, with the winner receiving eight points, second place receiving seven points… and eighth place receiving one point, providing a better approach than simply counting medals.
Of the three sports analyzed, athletics is by far the most globalized. All continents are represented, even if some still remain Undeniable inequalitySouthern countries performed well, such as Kenya, Ethiopia and Jamaica (who scored 15% between them).
This table was created by the author of the article
The same cannot be said for swimming and gymnastics, where developing countries are almost absent and the few that do perform poorly in the competition. In the pool, despite a system that tends to disadvantage the strongest nations by selecting only two swimmers from the same national team for each event, compared to three for track and field, the United States and Australia largely dominated, earning 32% of the points. In gymnastics, China and the United States received 29% of the points. When we add up the points earned by the top eight states in the rankings for these three sports, we see that they account for only 53% of the total points in track and field, compared to 69% in gymnastics and 74% in swimming.
In a stadium instead of a swimming pool or gymnasium
Obviously, athletics is the most popular sport. The weight of Africa is particularly instructive. The country scored 16% in athletics, not only in its traditional strong events, but also in middle and long distance events, which is comparable to the East African countries (Kenya, Ethiopia and Uganda). Botswana’s Letsile Tebogo became 200m Olympic championZambia, Zimbabwe, South Africa and Liberia also performed well in the sprint events. On the other hand, in swimming, Africa only scored 3% of the points, won by only two countries, South Africa and Tunisia; and in gymnastics, Africa scored only 2%, with Algeria only winning by 1. Kylia Nemours He wore the colors of France until the conflict with the French Federation.
The Caribbean is also a region of excellence in sports, and unlike swimming and gymnastics, the islands do not appear in the rankings, except for a swimmer from the Cayman Islands, eighth in the 50m freestyle. The total score obtained by athletes from the Caribbean participating in the Olympics at the Stade de France is 9%. In addition to Jamaica, we think of the sixth sporting nation, the Saint Lucian Julien Alfred, Olympic champion in the 100m and vice-champion in the 200m from the Dominican Republic. Thea Lafondthe Olympic triple jump title, went to a Grenadian, a Dominican or a Trinidadian.
This part of the world is a special sports reserve, as evidenced by the naturalization of Cuban athletes in European countries. Three former CubansAfter leaving her home country to travel to Spain, Portugal and Italy, she reached the triple jump podium. We can also note that five of the eight finalists in the women’s triple jump are from the Caribbean.
Throwing sports, once the preserve of Americans and Europeans, are increasingly global: a third of the points came from Africa, Asia, Oceania or the Caribbean. A Japanese woman won the javelin, and a New Zealander was second in weightlifting. But this is Men’s Javelin Throw This is the most important of the phenomena, as Pakistani Arshad Nadeem is the Olympic champion (and record holder), ahead of Indian Neeraj Chopra and Grenadian Anderson Peters. There is also a Kenyan and a Trinidadian among the finalists of this competition. This classification is currently unthinkable in other sports, especially swimming or gymnastics.
Do niche movements exist?
China ranked second in the medal table, behind only the United States, which shows that the Chinese team’s efforts are not focused on achieving good results in highly competitive sports such as track and field. In track and field, China only finished 12th.Egypttied with Norway and France. In swimming, China ranks thirdEgyptbut it ranks first in gymnastics, and while the country wins all the titles in table tennis or diving, it wins most of them in weightlifting or shooting, proving that niche sports are the best allies of countries that have recently integrated into the globalized world of sports and are seeking recognition in competition.
Of course, we can put China’s results into perspective by comparing them with the country’s population weight (1.41 billion inhabitants), but India, the world’s most populous country (1.42 billion inhabitants), only reaches 71Egypt Without winning an Olympic title, he ranked high on the “medal table”. On the other hand, what impressed us was yield Country likesAustralia (27 million inhabitants) or the Netherlands (18 million inhabitants) respectively ranked fourth and sixth in the “medal table” and managed to rank among the best countries in athletics and swimming.
As for France, if it takes fifth place in the “medal table”, we must take into account the general enthusiasm, only one more championship than in Atlanta 1996, when Russia was second, and fewer medals awarded. Although she broke her medal record and the country shines in team sports, we regret that her team won only two finals out of seven, in men’s rugby sevens and men’s volleyball. Track and field results seemed mediocre, with only one medal. If the swimming competition was more exciting, it was mainly thanks to Léon Marchand, who alone won a third of the points for the swimmers.
Therefore, the positive but misleading results achieved by France, which was the host and therefore favoured, should not make us forget that it is a country with a declining sports culture. Beyond the enthusiasm generated by these very successful Olympic Games, efforts must be made to promote physical activity, not only to improve the level of sport but also and above all for public health goals.
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