One more thing: I think that host countries were typically allowed to get away with a little more PEDS juicing in the past, although the IOC cracked down on Russia after the 2014 Sochi winter games when Russia made itself unpopular by seizing Crimea.
The Spanish won a number of prestigious medals in 1992 in Barcelona that they didn't have much of a history in those events before. In retrospect, it looks like EPO was already big in Southern Europe in the early 1990s before getting to East Africa in 1995.
To get ready for the 2000 Sydney games, the Australians hired a lot of disgraced East German ex-coaches.
Canada notoriously underperformed at the 1976 Montreal Olympics and 1988 Calgary Olympics, so when they got the 2010 Vancouver Whistler Olympics they made damn sure that wouldn’t happen again. And finally they won a gold on home soil!
Of course, the Olympics have expanded a lot, both in number of sports and women’s events. It’s pretty easy to game the Olympics by racking up medals in the least popular events. You can also invest in the sports that issue the most medals.
I would also point out a training advantage. Your athletes can train on the actual luge track, ski jump, etc. You can also adjust conditions a bit to suit your home athletes.
Are you excluding the "motivation" factor ? Because , why athlete could not give more energy because of the Olympics taking place in their country ?
Also, it seems you data shows better performance at the following Olympics (yet lower that when it was in their country , but still significant ), but your analysis does not account for that.
No, that's indirectly shown to not be a major factor by the fact that performance per athlete goes down slightly. One could also look at repeat athletes, but that's not really a good test since you can't remove the effect of aging.
My analysis *does* account for that. What do you mean by saying it doesn't? It directly shows it and it's clearly an important part of the article.
One more thing: I think that host countries were typically allowed to get away with a little more PEDS juicing in the past, although the IOC cracked down on Russia after the 2014 Sochi winter games when Russia made itself unpopular by seizing Crimea.
The Spanish won a number of prestigious medals in 1992 in Barcelona that they didn't have much of a history in those events before. In retrospect, it looks like EPO was already big in Southern Europe in the early 1990s before getting to East Africa in 1995.
To get ready for the 2000 Sydney games, the Australians hired a lot of disgraced East German ex-coaches.
Canada notoriously underperformed at the 1976 Montreal Olympics and 1988 Calgary Olympics, so when they got the 2010 Vancouver Whistler Olympics they made damn sure that wouldn’t happen again. And finally they won a gold on home soil!
Of course, the Olympics have expanded a lot, both in number of sports and women’s events. It’s pretty easy to game the Olympics by racking up medals in the least popular events. You can also invest in the sports that issue the most medals.
I would also point out a training advantage. Your athletes can train on the actual luge track, ski jump, etc. You can also adjust conditions a bit to suit your home athletes.
Are you excluding the "motivation" factor ? Because , why athlete could not give more energy because of the Olympics taking place in their country ?
Also, it seems you data shows better performance at the following Olympics (yet lower that when it was in their country , but still significant ), but your analysis does not account for that.
No, that's indirectly shown to not be a major factor by the fact that performance per athlete goes down slightly. One could also look at repeat athletes, but that's not really a good test since you can't remove the effect of aging.
My analysis *does* account for that. What do you mean by saying it doesn't? It directly shows it and it's clearly an important part of the article.
Isn’t Norway ahead in gold medals, though? Maybe I’m not caught up….
This article is about the boost for Olympic hosts. It doesn't say anything like 'Olympic hosts earn the most medals.'
Gotcha