Search Results (20)

This paper suggests a theoretical framework to summarise the empirical literature on the relationships between sports and both religious and secular ethics, and it suggests two interrelated theoretical models to empirically evaluate the extent to which religious and secular ethics, as well as sports policies, affect achievements in sports. I identified two national ethics (national pride/efficiency) and two social ethics (social cohesion/ethics) by measuring achievements in terms of alternative indexes based on Olympic medals. I referred to three empirical models and applied three estimation methods (panel Poisson, Data Envelopment, and Stochastic Frontier Analyses). I introduced two sports policies (a quantitative policy aimed at social cohesion and a qualitative policy aimed at national pride), by distinguishing sports in terms of four possibly different ethics to be used for the eight summer and eight winter Olympic Games from 1994 to 2024. I applied income level, health status, and income inequality, to depict alternative social contexts. I used five main religions and three educational levels to depict alternative ethical contexts. I applied country dummies to depict alternative institutional contexts. Empirical results support the absence of Olympic ethics, the potential substitution of sport and secular ethics in providing social cohesion, and the dependence of sports on politics, while alternative social contexts have different impacts on alternative sport achievements. Full article

This study develops two machine learning models to predict the medal performance of countries at the 2028 Olympic Games while systematically analyzing and quantifying the impacts of the host effect and exceptional coaching on medal gains. The dataset encompasses records of total medals by country, event categories, and athletes’ participation from the Olympic Games held between 1896 and 2024. We use K-means clustering to analyze medal trends, categorizing 234 nations into four groups (${\alpha }_1$, ${\alpha }_2$, ${\alpha }_3$, ${\alpha }_4$). Among these, ${\alpha }_1$, ${\alpha }_2$, ${\alpha }_3$ represent medal-winning countries, while ${\alpha }_4$ consists of non-medal-winning nations. For the $\alpha$1, $\alpha$2, and $\alpha$3 groups, 2–3 representative countries from each are selected for trend analysis, with the United States serving as a case study. This study extracts ten factors that may influence medal wins from the dataset, including participant data, the number of events, and medal growth rates. Factor analysis is used to reduce them into three principal components: Factor analysis condenses ten influencing factors into three principal components: the event scale factor (F1), the medal trend factor (F2), and the gender and athletic ability factor (F3). An ARIMA model predicts the factor coefficients for 2028 as 0.9539, 0.7999, and 0.2937, respectively. Four models (random forest, BP Neural Network, XGBoost, and SVM) are employed to predict medal outcomes, using historical data split into training and testing sets to compare their predictive performance. The research results show that XGBoost is the optimal medal predicted model, with the United States projected to win 57 gold medals and a total of 135 medals in 2028. For non-medal-winning countries (${\alpha }_4$), a three-layer fully connected neural network (FCNN) is constructed, achieving an accuracy of 85.5% during testing. Additionally, a formula to calculate the host effect and a Bayesian linear regression model to assess the impact of exceptional coaching on athletes’ medal performance are proposed. The overall trend of countries in the $\alpha$1 group is stable, but they are significantly affected by the host effect; the trend in the $\alpha$2 group shows an upward trend; the trend in the $\alpha$3 group depend on the athletes’ conditions and whether the events they excel in are included in that year’s Olympics. In the $\alpha$4 group, the probabilities of the United Arab Republic (UAR) and Mali (MLI) winning medals in the 2028 Olympic Games are 77.47% and 58.47%, respectively, and there are another four countries with probabilities exceeding 30%. For the eight most recent Olympic Games, the gain rate of the host effect is 74%. Great coaches can bring an average increase of 0.2 to 0.5 medals for each athlete. The proposed models, through an innovative integration of clustering, dimensionality reduction, and predictive algorithms, provide reliable forecasts and data-driven insights for optimizing national sports strategies. These contributions not only address the gap in predicting first-time medal wins for non-medal-winning nations but also offer guidance for policymakers and sports organizations, though they are constrained by assumptions of stable historical trends, minimal external disruptions, and the exclusion of unknown athletes. Full article

Olympic women’s judo has increased in complexity and competitiveness, demanding detailed tactical analysis. This observational study aimed to examine the relationship between the results of combats (Wazari [half point] vs. Ippon [full point]) and the techniques used in women’s judo combats in the Rio 2016 and Tokyo 2020 Olympic Games. A significant association was found between technique type and contest outcome (χ² = 40.004, df = 6, p < 0.001): Nage Waza (throwing techniques) produced 92.3% of Wazari, whereas Katame Waza (groundwork techniques) accounted for 61.1% of Ippon. Subgroup analysis confirmed these relationships (χ² = 17.217, df = 6, p = 0.009; Cramer’s V = 0.745), with Ashiwaza (foot/leg techniques) dominating Wazari. Uchimata was the most frequently used technique in the repechage (20%), bronze medal (22.6%), and final (23.1%) matches. In lightweights, Katame Waza dominated Ippon in finals (53.8%, χ² = 4.000, p = 0.046), while Nage Waza secured all Wazari. Middleweights also showed strong associations (χ² = 14.745, df = 1, p < 0.001; 93.9% of Wazari by Nage Waza). Although no significant association was found for heavyweights (χ² = 7.535, df = 1, p = 0.095), Katame Waza prevailed in Ippon (69.2%). These findings provide a tactical framework for tailoring technique-specific training by weight category and tournament phase to optimize outcomes in elite female judo. Full article

This study presents a hybrid intelligent model for predicting Olympic medal distribution at the 2028 Los Angeles Games, based on data-intelligence fusion (DIF). By integrating historical medal records, athlete performance metrics, debut medal-winning countries, and coaching resources, the model aims to provide accurate national medal forecasts. The model introduces a Performance Score (PS) system combining a Traditional Advantage Index (TAI) via K-means clustering, an Athlete Strength Index (ASI) using a backpropagation neural network, and a Host effect factor. Sub-models include an autoregressive integrated moving average model for time-series forecasting, logistic regression for predicting debut medal-winning countries, and random forest regression to quantify the “Great Coach” effect. The results project America winning 44 gold and 124 total medals, and China 44 gold and 94 total medals. The model demonstrates strong accuracy with root mean square errors of 3.21 (gold) and 4.32 (total medals), and mean-relative errors of 17.6% and 8.04%. Compared to the 2024 Paris Olympics, the model projects a notable reshuffling in 2028, with the United States expected to strengthen its overall lead as host while countries like France are predicted to experience significant declines in medal counts. Findings highlight the nonlinear impact of coaching and event expansion’s role in medal growth. This model offers a strategic tool for Olympic planning, advancing medal prediction from simple extrapolation to intelligent decision support. Full article

We study the inequality of citations received for different publications of various researchers and Nobel laureates in Physics, Chemistry, Medicine and Economics using Google Scholar data from 2012 to 2024. Citation distributions are found to be highly unequal, with even greater disparity among Nobel laureates. Measures of inequality, such as the Gini and Kolkata indices, emerge as useful indicators for distinguishing Nobel laureates from others. Such high inequality corresponds to growing critical fluctuations, suggesting that excellence aligns with an imminent (self-organized dynamical) critical point. Additionally, Nobel laureates exhibit systematically lower values of the Tsallis–Pareto parameter b and Shannon entropy, indicating more structured citation distributions. We also analyze the inequality in Olympic medal tallies across countries and find similar levels of disparity. Our results suggest that inequality measures can serve as proxies for competitiveness and excellence. Full article

The Olympic/Paralympic Games are world events that promote countries and their participants, and more particularly, those winning medals. The potential link between a country’s scientific productivity and its podium wins remains unknown for the Paralympic Games. This study aimed to (1) quantify the link between the production of Paralympic scientific articles and the medals won by countries during Summer/Winter Paralympic Games between 2012 and 2022, and (2) select the five most important articles published for all Paralympic sports. A bibliographic search of the Web of Science, PubMed, and Google Scholar databases was conducted. From the 1351 articles identified, 525 fulfilled the inclusion/exclusion criteria. The results showed a greater (7x) production of scientific articles relating to the Summer Paralympics compared to those relating to the Winter Paralympics. For the Summer Paralympics, there was a strong correlation (r = 0.79) between the number of medals and the number of scientific articles produced by a given country, while a low correlation (r = 0.12) was observed for the Winter Paralympics. Biomechanics-related articles represent almost 50% of the overall Paralympic publications. In conclusion, there is a strong link between scientific productivity and the number of medals won for the 2012–2022 Paralympic Games. Parasport Federations are strongly encouraged to promote the publication of more Paralympic research articles. Full article

The ‘Global Sporting Arms Race’ is the term that describes the competition among different countries to succeed in international sports competitions. The development of that peaceful competition determines two outputs: an increase in soft power at the international level and a promotion of the national identity and social impact. It means increasing the level of influence that the countries obtain internationally as a cornerstone of the concept of a sporting nation with a proud and healthy population. In order to explain the factors involved in the success of a sports system at the elite level, a systematic review was carried out based on the PRISMA protocol in the databases Scopus, SPORTDiscus, and Web of Science. The findings of the study show that the factors that determine success at the international level have received increased attention, as shown by the number of publications since 2010. The results indicate the following research factors: (1) it was observed that most researchers tend to carry out comprehensive analyses with a holistic perspective, while the UK, Australia, Canada, and Spain carry out segmented analyses; (2) Olympic sports—especially athletics—were the most analysed; while in non-Olympic sports, those with social influence predominate in countries, such as netball; (3) the analysis of meso and micro factors is preferred over macro factors; (4) quantitative studies are preferred through the analysis of primary sources, such as official reports; and (5) the economic variable is the most common input, with medals reached at the elite level being the most used output to check the correlation or significativity of the results. Full article

As the esports industry experiences unprecedented growth, efforts to legitimize it as a recognized sport have intensified. This paper explores the transformative changes in China’s esports landscape with focus on the aftermath of its official recognition at the 2023 Asian Games in Hangzhou. For this, this study employs a data-driven comparative approach to analyze both online news data and viewer comments on a video platform broadcasting the esports tournament during the Hangzhou Asian Games. For text data, it utilized text mining techniques of the Latent Dirichlet Allocation algorithm (LDA), and for conversion from image to text, it used through the Contrastive Language–Image Pretraining (CLIP) model. The findings reveal that the text and image data in online news emphasize the industry’s positive anticipation of esports becoming a medal sport, but the public who watched esports events showed mixed expectations, doubts, or even negative sentiments about the reevaluation of esports. As evidenced in the paper, the public’s divided stance towards esports might hinder the establishment of a solid consensus in developing the necessary infrastructure or policymaking. Thus, the transition for games to be recognized as an Olympic sport after their inclusion in the Asian Games demands a prolonged period and a comprehensive blend of economic, social, cultural, and educational policies. Full article

Exercise causes changes in the gut microbiota, and in turn, the composition of the gut microbiota affects exercise performance. In addition, the supplementation of probiotics is one of the most direct ways to change the gut microbiota. In recent years, the development and application of human-origin probiotics has gradually attracted attention. Therefore, we obtained intestinal Lactiplantibacillus plantarum “Tana” from a gold-medal-winning weightlifter, who has taken part in various international competitions such as the World Championships and the Olympic Games, to investigate the benefits of Tana supplementation for improving exercise performance and promoting antifatigue effects in mice. A total of 40 male Institute of Cancer Research (ICR) mice were divided into four groups (10 mice/group): (1) vehicle (0 CFU/mice/day), (2) Tana-1× (6.15 × 10⁷ CFU/mice/day), (3) Tana-2× (1.23 × 10⁸ CFU /mice/day), and (4) Tana-5× (3.09 × 10⁸ CFU/mice/day). After four weeks of Tana supplementation, we found that the grip strength, endurance exercise performance, and glycogen storage in the liver and muscle were significantly improved compared to those in the vehicle group (p < 0.05). In addition, supplementation with Tana had significant effects on fatigue-related biochemical markers; lactate, ammonia, and blood urea nitrogen (BUN) levels and creatine kinase (CK) activity were significantly lowered (p < 0.05). We also found that the improved exercise performance and antifatigue benefits were significantly dose-dependent on increasing doses of Tana supplementation (p < 0.05), which increased the abundance and ratio of beneficial bacteria in the gut. Taken together, Tana supplementation for four weeks was effective in improving the gut microbiota, thereby enhancing exercise performance, and had antifatigue effects. Furthermore, supplementation did not cause any physiological or histopathological damage. Full article

To date, the performance in triathlon has been measured through time or position. Although this is what defines the medals and the goal of the competition, it can have some limitations. As an alternative, the purpose of this study is to assess the degree of concordance of performance between each of the triathlon disciplines with overall performance through the triathlon performance indicator for the Olympic distance event. The official results from the World Triathlon Series for Olympic distance events from 2000 to 2019 were examined. A total of 11,263 entries were analysed, 6273 corresponding to elite men and 4990 to elite women. Moderate agreement was found between the running performance and overall performance in both elite men ICCa = 0.538 and elite women ICCa = 0.581. Moreover, moderate agreement was found between swimming performance and overall performance in both elite men ICCa = 0.640 and elite women ICCa = 0.613. Finally, good agreement was found between cycling performance and overall performance also in both elite men ICCa = 0.777 and elite women ICCa = 0.816. The main results of the present study show that the cycling performance indicator could be an alternative to anticipate the overall performance in the competition for the Olympic distance event. Full article

Although canoeing is one of the oldest sports in the Olympic program, it was not until the Tokyo Olympics in 2021 that women’s canoeing was first included in the competition. This fact has posed a challenge to the initiation and technification systems of countries in order to obtain competitive results, particularly in Spain, as it is one of the sports that contributed the most medals to the Olympic medal tally. The aim of this study was to evaluate the promotion and development of talent in women’s canoeing in Spain for its first-ever Olympic participation. For this purpose, an analytical survey (n = 167) was carried out, the answers to which were contrasted by gender and modality practiced. The results showed a positive evaluation of the current position in flatwater female canoeing regarding talent that is consistent with the competitive results achieved. Additionally, we found that the gender of the respondents influences their perception of the age of sport initiation and the suitability of the progression in the competition systems for the promotion of women’s canoeing in Spain. Therefore, the results of the questionnaire will facilitate a quick diagnosis of critical aspects by sport managers, allowing them to take corrective actions in time for the development of female canoeists and, at the same time, to promote future studies that delve deeper into these topics. Full article

Speed climbing has become an Olympic event. However, there have been limited studies on the athletic performance of elite speed climbers under the current IFSC rule. Thus, this study aims to perform a statistical analysis of the performance of elite speed climbers and compare the different sex of the 2019 IFSC Speed Climbing World Cup. The 384 times climbing result in total climbing time, the time of four phases, and the start reaction time were calculated. In addition, the statistical data of men and women’s total error rate in the final round, the error rate in each final round, as well as the body position and the phase when errors occurred were gathered. Several results were not found in previous studies. Firstly, there is no statistical significance between starting reaction and climbing time of male and female. Secondly, there was no significant correlation between phases of the route for male athletes. While there was a statistical correlation between adjacent stages for women, the time of women in each stage was significantly correlated with the previous stage (p < 0.05). The error rate of both men and women in the medal competition stage reached a high rate of ~50%. While the error rate of men in each phase of route has no significant difference, While the error rate of women in the fourth phase was significantly different from the first three parts (p < 0.05), gender-specific training procedures should be developed for elite athletes. Future research should test the psychological state and pressure of speed athletes in the competition. Full article

Hydrofoils are a current hot topic in the marine industry both in high performance sailing and in new passenger transport systems in conjunction with electric propulsion. In the sailing community, the largest impact is seen from the America’s cup, where boats are sailed at more than 50 knots (over 100 km/h) with 100% “flying” time. Hydrofoils are also becoming popular in the Olympics, as in the 2024 Olympic games 5 gold medals will be decided on foiling boats/boards. The reason for the increasing popularity of hydrofoils and foiling boats is the recent advances in composite materials, especially in their strength to stiffness ratio. In general, hydrofoils have a very small wetted surface area compared to the wetted surface area of the hull. Therefore, after “take-off” speed, the wetted surface area of the hull, and consequently the resistance of the boat, is reduced considerably. The larger the weight of the boat and crew and the higher the speeds, the greater the loads on the hydrofoils will be. The current research investigates the interaction effects between the fluid and structure of the ZP00682 NACRA 17 Z-foil. The study is carried out both experimentally, in SSPA’s cavitation tunnel, and numerically using a fully coupled viscous solver with a structural analysis tool. The experimental methodology has been used to validate the numerical tools, which in turn are used to reverse engineer the material properties and the internal stiffness of the NACRA 17 foil. The experimental flow speed has been chosen to represent realistic foiling speeds found in the NACRA 17 class, namely 5, 7, and 9 m/s. The forces and the deflection of the Z-foil are investigated, showing a maximum deflection corresponding to 24% of the immersed span. Finally, the effects of leeway and rake angles on the bending properties of the Z-foil are investigated to assess the influence of different angles in sailing strategies, showing that a differential rake set-up might be preferred in search for minimum drag. Full article

The aims of this study were to investigate the relative and chronological age among taekwondo world medal winners (by gender, Olympic 4-year period, Olympic weight category; N = 740), and to study the behaviour of multiple medallists (N = 156) to monitor changes in weight categories and wins over time. The observed birth quartile distribution for the heavyweight category was significantly skewed (p = 0.01). Female athletes (22.2 ± 3.5 years) achieve success at a significantly younger age (p = 0.01) than their male counterparts (23.6 ± 3.3 years). In the weight categories, female flyweights were significantly younger than those welterweights (p = 0.03) and heavyweight (p = 0.01); female featherweights were significantly younger than those heavyweights (p = 0.03). Male flyweights and featherweights were significantly younger than those welterweights and heavyweights (p = 0.01). When a taekwondo athlete won a medal several times, he/she did so within the same Olympic weight category group and won two medals in his/her career (p = 0.01). Multiple medallists of the lighter and heavier groups did not differ in the number of medals won but in the time span in which they won medals (p = 0.02). The resources deployed by stakeholders to achieve success in these competitions highlight an extremely competitive environment. In this sense, the information provided by this study can be relevant and translated into key elements. Full article