London, August 12, 2012. In the Olympic stadium, lit in the colors of the British flag, 80,000 spectators came to watch the closing ceremony of the Olympic Games. Fired up by the successive concerts of prestigious artists, everyone cheers the athletes who appear, radiant, on the field. In this year of organizing the competition, Great Britain broke its record since 1908 by winning 65 medals, including 29 gold, 18 silver and 18 bronze, thus rising to 3rd place in the world rankings. Since the Beijing Games in 2008 and the 51 medals obtained, the progress of the English is impressive: 30 medals in Athens, 28 in Sydney, and only 15 medals in Atlanta in 1996.
The sporting world has an expression to describe and explain this feat: “home advantage”, or the supposed advantage of playing at home. “This theory is verified at almost every Olympics: the impressive economic programs that are put in place in the host countries, mixed with increased motivation of local athletes, the encouragement of supporters, the fact of playing on already known grounds athletes or to offer more athletes in competition leads to an increase in the number of victories during the Games”, measures Pierre Lagrue, sports historian and specialist in the Olympic Games. “But this can also impact the previous and the following competition, which benefit greatly from these massive investments,” he adds. Thus, during the Rio Games in 2016, the United Kingdom… did better than in London, winning 67 medals! Same phenomenon for Brazil: absolute record shattered in Rio, with 19 medals… then beaten again in Tokyo, in 2021, with 21 podiums.
Japan, for its part, excelled at the Tokyo Games in 2021, with 58 medals won – compared to 41 in Rio, 38 in London or 25 in Beijing. “Mathematically, we can expect a high performance from the Japanese in Paris,” insists Wladimir Andreff, president of the scientific council of the Sports Economics Observatory, which notably took into account the variable “ host country” in creating your model Olympic medal prediction. “Mathematical tests and scientific literature show the real impact of fan support or habituation to a specific field on the performance of players. But the most important obviously remains the financial investment of the host country before, during and after the Games,” he explains, evoking the counter-example of Greece. Despite an outperformance in Athens in 2004, with a total of 16 medals obtained compared to 13 in 2000 and 8 in 1996, the country was unable to sustain these good results. In Beijing, in 2008, they obtained three podiums, and only two in 2012. “This is explained in particular by Greece’s economic misfortunes between 2004 and 2008 and a poorly managed organization, with an immense deficit at the end of the Games” , analyzes Wladimir Andreff.
“Virtuous circle”
“When the Olympics are organized, sport becomes a national and therefore political priority. It’s a virtuous circle,” agrees Jean-Baptiste Guégan, expert in the geopolitics of sport. “Host countries will tend to release funds for federations and athletes, create infrastructure, recruit more staff in all areas.” For the researcher, the best example remains that of London, in 2012. In 1997, following the Atlanta fiasco, the United Kingdom set up the UK Sport organization, with a budget of several hundred million pounds between 1997 and 2013. Their strategy is simple: target a few disciplines, such as sailing, cycling, rowing or swimming, and invest heavily in them in order to maximize medals during the next competitions. “They unlocked enormous scientific resources, while favoring the sports in which their athletes had the most chance of winning. And it worked,” illustrates Jean-Baptiste Guégan. Since 2008, in Beijing, the English have outperformed in rowing and cycling – winning 14 medals in this discipline, including 8 gold, for third place in the rankings. Four years later, on home soil, the United Kingdom swept the competition in track cycling, with seven gold medals in ten events.
“This investment is not magical either,” adds Pierre Lagrue. “The English had, for example, focused on swimming, but did not perform so well in 2012. On the other hand, they made significant progress at the world championships the following year, then at the 2016 Olympics,” he recalls. According to the historian, this specific targeting of certain sports in order to shine during the organization of the competition at home is far from being a new strategy: “This is true for China or Russia, for example. And this is not new! During the Cold War, the USSR, for example, relied heavily on less popular sports such as wrestling or weightlifting, disciplines where it came first in the rankings during the Moscow Games in 1980.” , he recalls.
For Jean-François Robin, head of the national network for scientific support for performance at the National Institute of Sport, Expertise and Performance (Insep), the question of research is essential: “The more a nation invests in scientific research on sports themes, the better the results will be at the Games. And the champions in this area remain the United States and China, as well as Great Britain.” France has also invested in the sector: in anticipation of the organization of the 2024 Olympic Games, a priority research program (PPR) “Very high performance sport”, endowed with 20 million euros, was launched by the National Research Agency in 2020, making it possible to finance 12 research projects in different disciplines. “Unlike the British, we do not only work on a few specific sports, but on around thirty of the 38 Olympic and Paralympic disciplines,” explains Jean-François Robin, who ensures that all fields of research are mobilized. “We work on aerodynamics or hydrodynamics, but also on psychology, biology, food, textiles…”, he lists, delighted that the “JO effect” has made it possible to rise and develop such a program.
But the researcher warns: for the effects of this “home advantage” to persist over time, the State will have to continue to invest in research. “We have a four-year head start. But if we want to stay in the top 5 for the years to come, we must not reduce the research budget… For the moment, we have no guarantee”. According to Pierre Rondeau, sports economist and professor at the Sports Management School, certain investments should have been put in place earlier. “The support of the State in anticipation of a competition at home allows you to maximize your chances of winning a medal… If it is done on time,” he believes, regretting a budgetary investment that was too late. “The English released resources in 1996, for results fifteen years later. We started thinking about the subject in 2017. It is not in four years that we will be able to hope for an improvement.”
“Win in France”
In the meantime, France is banking on the comfort of athletes. In the 2024 budget, 6.7 million euros are invested in the “Win in France” program, in order to put the French in the best logistical conditions. A “performance house” equipped with medical staff, coaches and training sites will, for example, be attached to the Olympic Village throughout the duration of the Games and reserved for French athletes. Furthermore, each athlete on the French team was able to benefit from four free tickets for their loved ones.
“We also prepare athletes for the over-media coverage to which they will be subject, to strengthen their mental skills by, for example, managing distractions, to communicate optimally between team members,” says Anaëlle Malherbe, psychology project manager. sport at Insep. The clinical psychologist is categorical: even if they seem anecdotal, these little details count. “Teams who are used to playing in a specific location, who are physiologically adapted to the territory, pushed by the local public or their loved ones, mentally prepared, will have a better chance of performing.” It remains to be seen whether this supposed “home advantage” will allow France to fulfill the objective set by Sports Minister Amélie Oudéa-Castéra, and to join the “top 5 most medal-winning nations”. In its often very insightful barometer, the Gracenote company from the Nielsen group, world leader in audience measurement, predicts 54 medals for the Blues in Paris. The post-war record – 43 charms in Beijing – would be shattered.
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