Is winning medals in international sport simply a matter of money?

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1 Is winning medals in international sport simply a matter of money? An international comparison in 15 countries Why do some countries win more medals than others? How much do countries invest in elite sport? How can policy makers influence the success of their athletes? What makes an elite sport policy effective and efficient? How should we measure success? How do nations prioritize their elite sport investment decisions? What is the impact of success in international sports events on society as a whole? How can nations improve their medal count? These key questions about high performance sport policy will be answered at the first SPLISS Conference on Elite Sport Success: society boost or not? This conference takes place on Wednesday 13 & Thursday 14 November 2013 in Antwerp (Belgium), the European Capital of Sport for Almost 300 participants from all over the world will be attending this conference (including delgates from Brazil, the United States, New Zealand, Australia, Canada and many European countries). During this conference, the hot off the press results of the SPLISS (Sports Policy factors Leading to International Sporting Success) study will be presented, an international comparison in 16 countries. This extensive research project is a collaboration of 43 researchers and 33 policy partners worldwide, and involves over 3000 high performance athletes, 1300 coaches and more than 240 Performance directors. During the conference sport scientists, policy makers and other stakeholders will give evidence of best practices from all over the world. The conference will also deal with the OUTCOMES of elite sport: Why would countries invest in elite sport? Does elite sport or international success lead to increased participation in sport, a 'feel good' factor or national pride? Do elite sport events impact on society? Can cities benefit from small and big events? A critical discussion tackling these questions will open the debate on the value of elite sport. In addition to the elite sport policy content there will also be a separate strand of the conference for sports event organisers from municipalities. More information about the conference programme: Contact: Prof. Dr. Veerle De Bosscher, Vrije Universiteit Brussel & Utrecht University, veerle.de.bosscher@vub.ac.be Presentation(s) about the SPLISS results will be made available from November 12th by: Vrije Universiteit Brussel Sicco wittermans, Sicco.Wittermans@vub.ac.be, TEL: (0) (0) Registration for the conference: kim.van.der.haar@sportsmedia.nl

2 Teamwork! Since 2009 a research team from 15 countries has collaborated in an international comparative study on elite sport policies, called SPLISS 2.0. This was a follow up to the SPLISS 1.0 study in 2008 when the authors celebrated the publication of their book "The Global Sporting Arms Race". A consortium of researchers leads the project: project coordinator Veerle De Bosscher (Vrije Universiteit Brussel, Belgium and Utrecht University, the Netherlands), Simon Shibli (Sheffield Hallam University, United Kingdom), Hans Westerbeek (Victoria University, Australia) and Maarten van Bottenburg (Utrecht University, the Netherlands). Shibli: It is hard to believe that a research project which started off as a small scale pilot study at the heart of Veerle de Bosscher's PhD thesis in 2007 would somehow develop into having its own international conference. Today we have sixteen nations from four continents taking part in SPLISS 2.0. We get regular requests for new countries to join the project, there is a demand for a Paralympic version of SPLISS, and there is probably a lifetime's work for somebody rolling out SPLISS on a sport- specific basis The Sports Policy factors Leading to International Sporting Success (SPLISS) have been compared in 15 countries(or 16 regions), including Australia, Brazil, Japan, Canada, Denmark, Estonia, France, Finland, the Netherlands, Northern Ireland (UK), Portugal, South Korea, Spain, Estonia and Flanders and Wallonia (Belgium). A total of 43 researchers and 33 policy organisations collaborated in the project. This joint initiative was possible thanks to financial support of the Vrije Universiteit Brussel, Topsport Vlaanderen (Belgium), NOC*NSF (the Netherlands), Ernst & Young (Belgium), contributions by each consortium team member and most significantly funding within nations from their various research institutes and policy organisations. The total project cost is estimated to be around 1.2 million euros. De Bosscher: I am proud that we have been able to realise such a massive project with only limited coordination funding (less than ) we are therefore grateful for the engagement of our very passionate research partners! Nine Pillars for an effective and efficient elite sport policy The study used a model of nine pillars that determine the effectiveness and efficiency of elite sport policies: (1) financial support, (2) structure and governance in elite sport, (3) sports participation, (4) talent identification and development, (5) (post) athletic career support, (6) training facilities, (7) coach education and support, (8) (inter)national competition and (9) scientific research and innovation. Its uniqueness lies in the involvement of the key stakeholders in elite sport, and the mix of measurement and qualitative evaluation. De Bosscher: This is one of the largest benchmark studies in elite sport policies ever pages of data collected on the characteristics of an efficient policy, show the depth of the project, comprehensive surveys have been translated into 12 languages involving over 3142 top level athletes, 1376 top coaches and 241 high performance directors worldwide.

3 More MONEY IN equals more MEDALS OUT One of the key discussion about elite sport competition is to what extent medals can be bought. The countries that invest most in elite sport (Korea, Japan, France, Australia and Canada, all with government/lottery funding over 100 million euros a year) are also the most successful nations in summer/winter sports. Appendix 1 illustrates this with a graph which shows that there is a clear relationship between money in and medals out. An interesting comment in this regard is that the competition has increased over time, because many countries have invested increasing amounts of money in elite sport, and more countries have developed a strategic planning process believing that success can be developed. As a consequence the return on investment has decreased for many nations or in other words medals have become even more expensive. In all of the sample nations, except from Denmark, Spain and Portugal, the governments (and lotteries) have increased their elite sport investments over the past four years. Only Japan and Brazil have also increased their medals from Beijing to London. Another interesting finding refers to the prioritization policies that many nations have made: rather than funding a wide range of elite sport disciplines, nations like Australia, Denmark, Canada, Belgium and more recently the Netherlands and the UK tend to target their scarce resources to only a few sports where they see a real chance of success at world level. Evidence from the SPLISS study was unable to confirm or deny that this strategy works: France for example- the most successful nation in the sample at summer sports and the nation that won medals in the highest number of sports has the most diverse approach, i.e. it funds the highest number of sports. Similarly Korea has been reasonably successful in the modern era and it too invests in many sports. By contrast Australia and Canada seem to be successful with a prioritisation or targeted- approach, whereby resources are invested in relatively few sports. The SPLISS study identifies that nations which invest more widely in terms of the number of sports funded tend to be successful in more sports. More efficiently organized countries perform better The countries that win more medals given the resources at their disposal can be described as efficient countries. Looking at Figures 1 and 2 (appendix), these are Australia, France, the Netherlands (and to a lesser extent Japan) for summer sports and Canada and the Netherlands for winter sports. Interestingly these countries apart from France- also have the best scores on Pillar 2: the organisation, structure and governance of elite sport. What these countries have in common is a strong national coordination of activities, with a clear decision making structure, strong involvement of athletes and coaches in the policy making process, full- time management staff in the national sport association (NSA), a high level of service oriented policy towards their National Governing Bodies (NGBs, also called federations/national Sport organisations in some countries) but with accountability principles, long- term policy planning and political recognition. The countries that generally have the best average ratings on all Pillars, are Australia (average 63%), Japan (62%), the Netherlands (58%), and Canada (57%). Improving nations' competitiveness?

4 The pillars that have lower ratings in most countries could be seen as the areas of investment in order to generate future success. In this regard, most countries have weak scores on Pillar 4 the talent identification (TID) and development (TD) pillar. No country has a very well developed rating. Ideally in future research this pillar needs to be analysed on a sport- specific basis as talents are usually recruited from the existing participation base within a sport. At a national level, NSA s have sought to take control over TID and TD processes through requirements for NGB funding and through the development of systems for an improved combination of training and education for athletes. Smaller countries (Switzerland, Denmark, Flanders (Belgium) and the Netherlands) have better ratings in this pillar. These better scores can be attributed to: NGB funding for talent development; long- term policy planning; well- developed monitoring systems; multi- dimensional support for young potentials; and most importantly their nationally coordinated systems for the combination of elite sport and study in secondary and higher education. It seems that larger countries in terms of geography or population such as Australia, France and Canada have in the past- taken a more relaxed approach to the development of Pillar 4. In an increasingly competitive environment, this relaxed approach to talent identification and development will not be sustainable in the long term which in turn will make the prospects of small countries (still) poorer. Pillar 9, scientific research and innovation, is another under- developed pillar. Much of this pillar is related to financial investments, but interestingly, not to wealth. Australia stands out as the country with the most coherent approach to scientific research amongst the sample nations, followed by Japan, Canada and to a lesser extent France. Sport science and innovation is an integrated part of the athlete development process in the national trainings centres, respectively in the Australian Institute of Sport; the Japanese Institute of Sport Science, and the network of seven Canadian Sport Centres that collaborate with NGBs. In these countries, coaches are more satisfied about the sufficiency and dissemination of research data specifically for their sport. Pillar 9 is still relatively under- developed (in descending order) in Denmark, Spain, Portugal, Northern- Ireland, Brazil and Wallonia, which are nations that all score below the sample average. The readiness of the future hosts of the Olympic Games? Rio De Janeiro 2016 and Tokyo 2020 It is a well- documented that countries hosting the Olympic Games have a home advantage and tend to win more medals. Nations like Australia (Sydney 2000), Greece (Athens 2004), China (Beijing 2008) and the United Kingdom (London 2012) all performed better during their home Games and in the edition before. They also had increased investment and a more strategic national policy approach to elite sport development. Of course, there are factors other than national policies by governments and national sport associations that determine international sporting success. Looking at the nine pillars for Brazil, and how elite athletes, coaches and performance directors have evaluated them, there is a strong belief that with an increasing national strategic approach to elite sport policy development, Brazil may do better in the medal tally. National government, lotteries and the Olympic Committee all together invest around 75 million euros on a yearly basis in elite sport. An estimation is made of another 65 million euros by the state companies (140 in total), although it is doubtful as to the extent the latter amount is genuinely nationally coordinated.

5 As can be seen in Figure 1, the only pillar (except from Pillar 1, funding) where Brazil has a score above the average of the other 15 countries (/regions) is Pillar 8: International competition. This is concerned with the organisation of international events and the participation of athletes in national and international competitions. The magnitude of the gaps between the scores for Brazil and the sample average are the greatest in Pillars 7 (coaches), 4 (talents) and 6 (facilities). If Brazil aspires to narrow the gap between itself and the other sample nations, the priority for investment should start with the three policy areas with the greatest gap. The fourth area, sport participation is a long- term development that also needs to be prioritised. Despite the potential that the country has, it seems that 2016 will be too early for Brazil to perform well and in line with previous host nations. The Olympic Games may give the country a boost towards longer term success, perhaps for Tokyo Japan and Brazil were the only countries of the sample that increased their total change in market share (i.e. proportion of gold, silver, bronze medals won) after increasing investments made by Japan performs far better than Brazil on the nine pillar scores. The total elite sport budget is also higher: 208 million euros, the second highest after South Korea. It has a relative strength in research and innovation, training facilities (mainly related to the national training centre in Tokyo, which since 2008 has provided cutting edge facilities and technologies, and in addition the 22 sport specific trainings centres), and (international) competition. If Japan takes a long- term view towards athletic development, by investing in quality sports participation and talent development, the country can expect to perform well when it hosts the Olympic Games in Figure 1: radar graph scores for Brazil against the sample averages

6 Figure 2: radar graph scores for Japan against the sample averages Information about the other countries The complete SPLISS results will be published in a book in mid More information will be available on

7 Figure 3: summer sports funding- medals relationship Elite sport expenditures (government, lotteries, national coordinated sponsorship) and success in the SPLISS nations at world championships and Olympic Games ( ) Figure 4: winter sports funding- medals relationship National elite sport expenditures (government, lotteries, national coordinated sponsorship) and success in the SPLISS nations at world champi onships and Olympic Games ( )

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