At the close of each Olympic cycle, it’s easy to guess which nations brought home the most medals, and last year’s Tokyo 2021 Summer Olympic Games were no exception. The United States, Russia, China, and the United Kingdom undoubtedly topped the charts, while others, such as Panama, Mozambique, and Laos trailed the pack. This is surprising to no one.
The talent some athletes from the higher-performing nations have is impossible to deny. American swimmer Katie Ledecky’s speed is jaw-dropping; Argentinian soccer player Lionel Messi’s prowess on the pitch is inspiring and responsible for his most recent World Cup victory. Nonetheless, these people aren’t once-in-a-lifetime prodigies; before Ledecky, the Americans had Phelps, and before Messi, the Argentines had Maradonna. The star power in these nations’ rosters is ever-present, helping them excel generation after generation. Meanwhile, dozens of countries struggle to raise a single virtuoso or snag their first gold medal.
With fewer than ten countries amassing almost 50% of all Olympic medals, there is a clear systemic anomaly in the distribution of Olympic achievement. Based on such jarring numbers, the public consensus has normalized that only a few nations are athletically successful. Yet, while many have attempted to resolve the question of why this strange and recurrent phenomenon even exists — often attributing athletic mediocrity to low national incomes or instability — the true answer may not be so simple.
The Common Good
Contrary to general trends already discussed, there are some sports in which developing nations manage to squeeze their way onto the podium. Sports like volleyball and water polo are not only dominated by the usual champions but also by underdogs such as Brazil and Hungary, respectively.
Although varied, most of the sports in which less-medaled nations thrive are group sports. This makes sense: On a tighter budget, when it’s time for developing nations to invest in sports, they logically choose to favor whatever will benefit the most people. When deciding between building a tennis court or a soccer field, the soccer field would be the wiser choice, as dozens could play at a time, whereas a tennis court would only serve four or fewer. Therefore, team sports are the usual beneficiaries of government support.
Conversely, athletes from developing nations who compete in individual rather than team sports are left unattended, and their chances of gold are far slimmer. Having little governmental support, they face systemic barriers at times too high for them to surmount, including lack of access to equipment or infrastructure, coaches with enough expertise, and a community that will support their pursuit. As a result, most individual sports remain led by traditionally successful countries.
However, there are solo sports in which poorer nations surprisingly thrive. In track and field at the 2016 Olympic games, for instance, the charts detailing the countries with the most medals were topped by Kenya, Jamaica, and Ethiopia. Yet, this exception is surprisingly easy to explain. Needing little to no infrastructure, running opens its doors for everyone to train regardless of a country’s wealth or resources. Although all professional athletes eventually train with expensive machinery and skilled trainers, the sport’s simplicity allows all interested participants a foot in the door and makes earning a gold medal boil down to hard work and raw talent.
On the other hand, sports that require heavy infrastructure or equipment such as gymnastics, horseback riding, and swimming gatekeep the podium from both countries and individual athletes who are unable to afford it. In an interview with the HPR, former Harvard baseball player Matt Thomas mentioned that this was an obstacle for many athletes, saying, “The wealthier you are, the more opportunities you have. Think of sports like golf or baseball, where you need to buy a lot of equipment to be able to perform and play the sport.”
From a macroscopic view, national low-income status also exacerbates this shortage. Since many countries can’t afford to build several gymnasiums or pools for aspiring Olympians, athletes are sadly denied proper training, leaving their talent unrealized. Therefore, results in such sports continue to reflect a positive correlation between GDP and success, with wealthier countries like the United Kingdom, the United States, and Germany monopolizing victory.
Colombia’s Minister of Sport Ernesto Lucena concurred in an interview with the HPR, saying, “Great nations, the ones with big budgets, who additionally have great infrastructure to help all areas of their country, where not a single person lacks the budget to explore their talent, are definitely the ones you see secure top spots.”
Greener Grass
Aware of the scarce opportunities in their home countries, especially for those playing solo, many athletes choose to emigrate and seek a professional career elsewhere, where their talent can be fully nurtured. This phenomenon can be clearly seen in soccer leagues; regardless of where they come from, all of the world’s soccer stars end up playing in Europe, where the highest level of the sport is. Everybody wants to further their career and acquire the, often monetary, resources to do so, many sacrifice their homeland.
Not only do athletes find better and more numerous coaches, equipment, teammates, and infrastructure when they leave, but also, perhaps most importantly, a better quality of life. For many, sport is the ticket out of problem-ridden nations that being drafted or hired somewhere else allows them to leave behind Coming from Venezuela at 16 to play baseball, Gold Glove recipient Ozzie Guillen lived this reality, telling the HPR that it was common for people to “want to leave your neighborhood and your poverty behind, and provide for your family.” After all, when leaving for countries that can afford to invest in sports, athletes’ salaries can jump from hundreds to millions of dollars. The offer is simply too good to pass up.
As such, athletes end up building better lives elsewhere and seldom return to their home countries. This has massive implications for the development of sports. When retired, most athletes delve into managerial roles or use their expertise and resources to expand the specific sport they’re interested in. Slowly but surely, these athletes build the backbone of a country’s sports program. When athletes stay in already well-resourced countries around the world, those nations ultimately continue receiving the best training while underfunded sports in often developing countries continue to struggle.
Even though social mobility and better quality of life are incredible news for the athletes, it’s a pattern that feeds the system which upholds traditional winners and subdues the rest, contributing to a lack of role models, experts in the fields, and future coaches. Demonstratively, when asked what opportunities athletes in countries such as Venezuela have to succeed, Guillen’s answer was simple: “None.”
To Train or Not to Train
Those unable to leave their home country and find better opportunities in a foreign land often face an obstacle too difficult to overcome: Athletes interested in pursuing both an academic and athletic career, only have access to undernourished collegiate programs that don’t allow them to go professional.
On the other hand, affluent countries, particularly the United States, have created a system for their athletes to succeed both academically and athletically. College sports have become incredibly popular, and schools constantly invest in bettering their programs. Associations and conferences such as the NCAA and the Ivy League have been built to support this booming culture, proving collegiate sports are not a hobby but rather a training ground for professionals. University funding also helps reduce the strain on the government to finance sports and produce world-class athletes.
The cultural and athletic salience of the college-to-professional pipeline is most observable in U.S. men’s basketball. For instance, nicknamed March Madness for its popularity, college basketball’s annual tournament draws an average of more than 15 million viewers per game. For those wanting to go professional, playing at this collegiate level is the right step to take: Almost 85% of all NBA players attended college, confirming that university athletics feed into professional leagues in wealthy nations with high athletic performance.
Naturally, this benefits such countries in international competitions, like the Olympics. For Lucena, “Countries who have bet on a good university system for sports have also become dominant.” In other countries, though, that potential is lost: The lack of a sports culture in college makes funding for young athletes rest entirely on the government’s shoulders, leading to underfunded and incompetent sports programs.
A Positive Feedback Loop
As so much of international athletic success is dependent on investment, it’s important to look at why successful countries spend so much on sports in the first place. The answer is exceedingly simple: Sports are a profitable investment, so the greater the input, the greater the output.
Sports move people, elicit strong emotions, and create die-hard fans; they’re a central part of the entire world’s culture. Soccer star Cristiano Ronaldo and Leo Messi’s positions as the first- and second-most followed people on Instagram, boasting over 520 million and 400 million followers respectively, proves the magnitude of this phenomenon. Considering their exceedingly large following, the athletic industry is incredibly lucrative and moves colossal sums of money. Tickets, merchandise, advertisements, meet and greets, among many others are a constant, heavy stream of revenue. What’s more, by creating millions of jobs, requiring infrastructure, and transporting so much capital, the industry has become an economy in and of itself, boasting a market size of 83 billion dollars in North America alone. Thus, it’s no surprise that, when able, countries invest so heavily in this area, as it’s almost a given the investment will be returned.
Unfortunately, however, this profitability cements the power dynamics in sports and upholds the current system of winners and losers. Whenever a country earns money through sports, it can then invest it back and grow its athletics programs quickly. In Thomas’ eye, this also happens at the collegiate level, where “at certain schools, [sports] are part of the economics. They depend on the money they make from football season, for example.” Consequently, they continue winning. A positive feedback loop is generated in which some countries continue to dominate generation after generation. Meanwhile, the rest valiantly, yet unrealistically try to break a cycle that works against them. In Guillen’s words “we’re swimming against the current.”
At first glance, this issue might seem easy to solve. Since it’s such a profitable investment, developing nations with tighter budgets should try and spare some change for their athletics department; after all, this will benefit them in the long run. However, it’s important to note that this is a long-term investment, and many of these countries can’t afford to spend on projects that will only come to fruition ten or twenty years later. Instead, they operate on a more day-to-day basis and must solve immediate problems faced by their populations. Hence, sports are not a priority, and the decades-old pattern remains intact.
Conclusion
Wealth distribution and inequality play a major role in all areas of life, including sports. Without a doubt, all athletes work hard and train strenuously to achieve success; yet, systemic barriers place additional obstacles in the way of many. The disproportionate number of wins wealthier countries have relative to worse-off others is a clear demonstration of this unbalanced structure. It’s disheartening to think that there might be incredible athletes out there who are waiting to set a new world record or discover new techniques but just lack the opportunity to do so.
There are, however, glimmers of light that progress is approaching: For instance, Morocco blew the world away with its top-four finish in the 2022 World Cup, declaring to the globe that African players playing for African countries have a place among the best in the world. One can only hope that the world of sports will, however gradually, continue this transition toward equity and justice and that the race for number one becomes a nail-biter that includes all nations — even those who have yet to clinch their first gold model.
Image by Amen Gashaw via Jim De Ramos, primipil, Aksonov, 12019, and Dymytro Aksonov is licensed under the Canva License.
