Investigating over and under performance in Olympic games beyond economic factors: an institutional study of sports outcomes

Investigating over and under performance in Olympic games beyond economic factors: an institutional study of sports outcomes

Politics and International Studies

Nurmukhamed Tokmukhamedov, Andrew El, Arshia S. Tabatabaee, Antons Pimonovs and Yusuf Amin

A paper investigating the determinants of Olympics success (and lack of), we use a mixed-methods approach, combining qualitative and quantitative analysis to examine the determining factors of sporting success. Using Reiche’s WISE framework, our research extends the analysis of sports performance into the spectre of institutionalist political economy with sports performance as a path-dependent outcome of formal and informal institutions, ideology, early learning, and gender dynamics. Analysing medal outcomes from 1996 to 2016 Olympic Summer Games, alongside building up on new and contemporary research from the wider sports policy subdiscipline, we identify key overperformers such as Australia, China, Cuba, and Jamaica, and underperformers such as India, Nigeria, and Iran.
We determine that sporting success is deeply connected to factors that precede and transcend economics and material wealth. The sporting success of countries is deeply connected to the historical process of institutionalisation, colonial legacies, and ideology. Our findings contribute to a growing body of institution-facing research on the Olympic Games and the wider Sports Policy body of research.