Matthew Syed on the Olympics

Two excellent articles by Matthew Syed in the Times recently make the following trenchant observations:

First, that far too many medals are offered in minority sports. Michael Phelps is undoubtedly the greatest swimmer in the world; perhaps ever. Of that there can be no doubt. But at the same time, if Phelps were a country he'd be in the top ten on the medals board; does that make sense? The reason is that so many medals are offered in swimming to events not sufficiently distinct - butterfly and breaststroke, for example, and the differences between some of the distances are too small. Is Phelps in 2008 twice the athlete Carl Lewis was in 2004? Somehow I doubt it; the only difference is that Lewis could only run the 100m and 200m twice; there was no medal for running it in different styles.

Syed's article making the point is here.

It rather reminds me of the Zimbabwesque inflation in professional boxing, due to incessant increases in the number of 'governing bodies' and the weight divisions therein. A few years ago I read that there were a total of 70 possible boxing world champions; if anything the number now would be greater. Does that make the holder of five different titles five times a previous champion? Of course not.

The second point concerns the expense of certain Olympic sports, which gain much attention and involve a great deal of medals, many of which have been won by Great Britain and Australia and very few by any of the poorer nations. Syed writes:

Take the Yngling sailing event for women - at which Great Britain won gold in 2004. Only about four crews at present compete in the UK, with fewer than 100 competitive crews on the planet. Why? Because it costs more than £20,000 to buy a decent boat. You may as well include Formula One in the Olympics. In rowing, sailing and equestrianism there were 186 medals on offer at the last Olympics. Not one was won by an athlete from a low-income nation.

... Get ready for the smugness if we achieve more success in track cycling, with commentators proclaiming that we Brits are endowed with pedalling genius. The reality is that British cycling has been given millions to spend on bike technology, something that is not considered a sensible target for public expenditure by many other rich nations (although not dictatorships such as China, which tend to spend like crazy on elite sport) and is beyond the public finances of the rest.

How does the Government get away with this raid on the public purse? By claiming that Olympic success inspires grassroots participation, which, in turn, has a benign long-term impact on the public finances. It is an argument with everything on its side except evidence. The reality is that elite success has no sustained impact on participation, and, even if it did, the fiscal effects would be ambiguous.

The whole article is here. Essentially the point is that the Olympics is supposed to be one of the world's greatest sporting events, but so many of the sports involved are supremely irrelevant to so much of the world. It is, I might add, a great pity that a sport loved by over a billion can't put on a decent world championship to save its life ... 20/20 for 2012, anyone?

Coda: two interesting views on determinants of Olympic success can be found here and here.