Ch.Ch. Van                                   
Russian State University of Physical Culture, Sport, Youth and Tourism, Moscow

Key words: Olympic Games, Olympics, historical analysis, comparison, correlation.

Introduction. Proceeding from the comparative analysis of performance of the national teams of the Olympic Games host countries, their indices are growing steadily in the period preceding the Olympic Games when they reach their maximum. This is caused by the increasing government support in training of the national Olympic teams and by focusing on the medal-capacious sports, in which the country can achieve considerable success. During the succeeding Olympic Games, the primary goal is to keep the achieved level of sports results.

The purpose of the present research was to conduct a comprehensive comparative analysis of performance of the national teams of the Olympic Games host countries (South Korea, Spain, the USA, Australia, Greece, China, the UK) in the late 20th - early 21st century.

In addition to the Games, hosted by each of these countries, the analyzed period included three previous Olympics Games and three (or less) next Olympics.

The methods used in this research were historical analysis and generalization, comparison and correlation.

Results and discussion. The comparative analysis showed stable improvement of the host country team performance during the pre-Olympic period (Diagrams 1, 2, 3, 4) with the best results achieved at the Games hosted by the country.

Overall, such results can be achieved due to the medal-capacious sports in which the country has previously demonstrated successful performance: for South Korea it is archery, table tennis; for Australia - swimming, cycling; for China - artistic gymnastics, springboard diving, badminton, table tennis; for the UK - cycling, sailing, rowing. However, this does not refer to the national team of Spain, which increased the number of medals at the cost of the sports in which they did not demonstrate high performance in general [Diagram 5], and the national team of Greece which, although being in compliance with the above mentioned tendency, did not achieve top results in either sports in which they won medals [Diagram 6].

With that, the teams of South Korea, Spain, Australia won more medals during the next Olympic Games as compared to the Olympics preceding the Games held in these countries [Diagrams 1, 2, 5]. It is primarily due to those sports in which the greatest number of medals were won in the Olympic Games held in the country. In general, the national team of the USA fits in the actual tendency too, as it demonstrates stable results during the whole period under study (there is a great difference between the indices of the XXIII Olympic Games 1984 and other indices, which is explained by the low competition due to a number of the leading sports countries not participating in the Games) [Diagram 7].

Exception to this rule applies to the national team of Greece which performed worse in Beijing than in Athens, and won 2 silver and 2 bronze medals [Diagram 6]. This can be explained by the absence of sports in which the country traditionally dominates. When there was no "motivation", by which we understand the status of the host country of the Games, the national team of Greece was not able to compete with the more trained teams.

Struggling for the position in the non-official team classification, each team achieved the best results in the Games held in their countries particularly. But it was only the national team of Australia which succeeded to hold its position in the non-official team classification, they were able to stay on the 4th position on completion of the next Olympics [Diagram 8], and of the USA national team which topped the non-official team classification during the Games in Atlanta, Sydney and Athens [Diagram 9].

In the non-official team classification tables, the national teams of the rest of the countries went down to lower levels, however, it should be noted that the dynamics of this decrease was different. In 1988 - 2000 years the team of South Korea fell from the 4th to the 12th place [Diagram 10]; in 1980 - 2004 years the team of Spain fell from the 6th to the 20th place [Diagram 11]; in 2004 - 2008 years the team of Greece fell from the 15th to the 59th place [Diagram 12].

The dynamics of this decrease depends on the ratio of the number of medals won by the national team and the overall number of the medals, which demonstrates the training level of the elite athletes who are able to compete on the international stage.

In whole, the diagrams of the changes in the quantity of the achieved medals of all classes and the quantity of the gold medals are similar for the teams of South Korea, the USA, Australia, Greece, China [Diagrams 13, 14, 15, 16, 17].

There are certain differences in the indices of the diagrams representing the quantity of medals won by the national teams of Spain [refer to Diagram 18] and the UK [Diagram 19]. In the first instance due to the small number of the achieved medals the dynamics of the ratio of the overall number of medals and the gold ones cannot be evaluated. As for the performance of the UK national team, during the 2004 Olympic Games they won 2 medals less than during the Olympics in 2000.

Conclusion. The comparative analysis of the performance of the national teams of the host countries of the Olympic Games proves that their indices grew steadily in the period before they hosted the Olympics, when they reached their maximum. This is due to the increased government support in training of the national Olympic teams and the focus on the medal-capacious sports, in which the country can achieve considerable success. During the succeeding Olympic Games, the primary goal is to keep the achieved level of sports results.

References

1. Mel’nikova, N.Yu. The comparative analysis of results of the national teams of host countries of Winter Olympic Games in the late XX - early XXI centuries / N.Yu. Mel'nikova, A.Yu. Nikiforova // Olympic bulletin № 10. – Moscow: Fizkultura i sport, 2009. – P. 98-104. (In Russian)
2. Nikiforova A.Yu. The comparative analysis of the results of the national teams of host countries of Olympics Games in the late XX - early XXI centuries / A.Yu. Nikiforova // Proceedings of the XX Jubilee Olympic scientific session of young scientists and students of Russia. – 2009. – P. 92-100. (In Russian)
3. Nikiforova A.Yu.The comparative analysis of the results of the national teams of host countries of Olympic games / A.Yu. Nikiforova, N.Yu. Mel'nikova // Collected works of students and young scientists of RSUPhCST. – Moscow: Svetoton, 2009. – P. 84-89. (In Russian)

Corresponding author: history@sportedu.ru