Olympic Games Research Articles

The Impact of VR Technology on the Sports and Culture Industry in the Era of COVID-19: Beijing Winter Olympic Games as an example

The Impact of VR Technology on the Sports and Culture Industry in the Era of COVID-19: Beijing Winter Olympic Games as an example

The International Olympic Committee as policymaker: Identifying the leading areas of change in candidature, delivery and legacy aspects of the Olympic Games

The International Olympic Committee as policymaker: Identifying the leading areas of change in candidature, delivery and legacy aspects of the Olympic Games

ŽENSKA ORODNA TELOVADBA V BRAZILIJI: NJENE POTI OD 1966 DO 2021

Brazilian men’s and women’s Artistic Gymnastics (AG) has been in the spotlight due to the results of some outstanding athletes in the most important international competitions over the last 20 years. However, the development of this sport in the national context does not reflect these achievements. This article performs a critical analysis of Women’s Artistic Gymnastics (WAG) in Brazil, reviewing the trajectory of the main gymnasts and their achievements in the World Championships and Olympic Games from 1966 to 2021, as well as relevant contextual facts during this historical period. Medals in major events have been won since 2001, with gradual and unstable growth, placing Brazil among the most prominent countries. Nevertheless, the data suggest that the achievements were based on concentrated investment in elite gymnasts, mainly in the Olympic team, with the support of already established clubs. The development is still centralized in a few clubs, without showing a sustainable increase in the number of clubs and gymnasts. In this scenario, there is a need for a long-term plan that can sustain the development of the national ecosystem (clubs, local competitions, provincial federations) across all age-group categories and in connection with the national teams..

Education through sport with the principle of fair play in pre-war Łódź – a city of cultural differences

The educational aspects of sports were recognized during the development of sports along with its educational values, character formation, including the adherence to the fair play principle, primarily in English schools. Pierre de Coubertin, the founder of the modern Olympic Games, based his philosophy of Olympism on them, aiming for the development of athletes from different nations. Łódź, a multicultural place – a "small center of games" at the turn of the 19th and 20th centuries, was such a place. Sport and various forms of physical activity were the foundation for bringing together people from different social, cultural, and religious backgrounds in this rapidly growing industrial city.The Western European genealogy of fair play contains elements of medieval chivalric ethos, ethical virtues of Renaissance courtiers, and the moral ideals of a 19th-century English gentleman. The supplement to the fair play idea also includes the ethical sports contexts present in the histories of local sports communities. The overview of selected documents presented in this article testifies to the significant role of sport, along with the fair play principle, in the creation of a common, multicultural, industrial city. It also encourages a brief presentation of pioneering actions aimed at popularizing sports with the fair play principle during the development of Łódź.

Assessing the Landscape of the Sport Industry in China: A Brief Commentary

Sport has played a critical role in China's development since 1949, with achievements in elite sports, the hosting of Olympic games, and establishing professional leagues. The aim of China is to establish itself as a global sporting leader, influenced by the success of the US market and the rising obesity epidemic. In 2008, Chinese athletes showcased their talents at the Beijing Olympics, although concerns were raised about the social impact of traditional culture. Despite the transition to a market economy, China's elite sports system remains centralised and government-controlled. The “Number 46” policy introduced in 2014 aimed to establish a world-leading sports industry by 2025. While the market has grown, promoting sport participation and addressing cultural influences and governmental control are essential for sustained future growth.

An Alternative Model for International Competition: The First Women’s World Field Hockey Tournament, Copenhagen 1933

The International Federation of Women’s Hockey Associations (IFWHA) held its inaugural tournament in Copenhagen, Denmark, from 6–10 September 1933. It was the first in a series of triennial (later four-yearly) tournaments that would run for the next 50 years, bar 1939–1945, and that came to be regarded as the women’s world field hockey championships. Until 1975, however, there was no title to be won or trophy to be lifted – a unique situation among major team sports. Influenced by the post-World War I peace movement and wary of anything that smacked of professionalism, the IFWHA organized its tournament more like a festival: the social aspect was at least as important to the players and administrators as results on the pitch, although teams competed fiercely for the best results. At a time when that other great festival of sport – the Olympic Games – was increasingly the focal point of international rivalries and political grandstanding, IFWHA’s Copenhagen tournament represented an alternative vision for elite sport. That it was entirely female-run only adds to its importance as a sporting milestone, and the women who organized and played in it deserve wider recognition for their role in the progress narrative of women’s sport.

Mexico City's Olympic Games: Citizenship and Nation Building, 1963–1968

Mexico City's Olympic Games: Citizenship and Nation Building, 1963–1968

Implementing an Organizational Trauma-Informed Approach to Olympic Sites: An Urgent Priority to Protect Elite Athlete Well-being During Olympic Games Participation

Abuse has been acknowledged as an adverse event which leads to trauma and long-term health effects in sport. Given the high rates of abuse occurring in elite sport contexts, many Olympic athletes will not only be subjected to abuse while residing and competing at the Olympic Games but may also experience trauma and its effects. In this article, we build on the calls for a trauma-informed approach in elite sport to outline a rationale for the International Olympic Committee (IOC) to implement an organizational trauma-informed approach to Olympic sites. Such an approach is essential because trauma researchers outside, and inside sport contexts, have outlined that when organizations are not trauma aware, and practices are not trauma-informed, unintended “unsafe” responses may result. To contextualize our rationale for an organizational trauma-informed approach, we provide examples of Olympic athletes’ stories to demonstrate the abuse and trauma they experienced while competing at the Olympic Games. To build on the human right that all athletes participating in the Olympic Games have the right to do so safely and free from harm, we further outline what an organizational trauma-informed approach involves and why it is important to limit re-traumatization risk. We further reflect on how being trauma-informed extends a duty of care to better protect athletes, which should be a responsibility of the IOC.

Mind or Medal: Elite Athletes’ Mental Health Management in Sports Events

There is a conversation in American athletics over the mental health experiences of athletes. Elite athletes encounter consequences ranging from mental well-being to mental illness. Some experts are concerned health of Tokyo 2020 Olympic and Paralympic Games athletes. The proliferation of research on elite athletes’ mental health culminated in the International Olympic Committee’s (IOC) Expert Consensus Statement. Given the importance of athletes’ mental health, this case study reviews the literature and the relevance of athletic identity to the diagnosis, treatment, and prognosis of poor mental health and fills the gap in theory/research and practice in elite sport.

An Investigation Into The Reading Direction Preferences Of Generation Z: A Study On The Design Of Asian Winter Olympics Posters

Visual design is a crucial tool for communicating ideas through images rather than words or printed text. It enables readers to visually interpret and understand information, potentially solving problems across various life aspects. Traditional reading patterns usually flow from left to right and from top to bottom, while some Asian scripts are written in horizontal rows from left to right or in vertical columns from top to bottom. Lines guide the eye between sections and visual elements, while white space allows the eye to rest and focus on targeted areas. The purpose of arranging the five elements of layout design—text, images, lines, shapes, and white space—is to capture the reader's attention and effectively convey information. In this study, researchers conducted a visual content analysis of a poster with 40 Generation Z respondents to investigate their reading direction. This generation is known for its frequent use of various gadgets and preference for short, simple text to comprehend content. The researchers intentionally designed a vertical banner-sized poster representing the Asian Winter Olympics as a sample. The events included Sapporo 1972 and Nagano 1998 in Japan, PyeongChang 2018 in South Korea, and Beijing 2022 in China. The poster is segmented into four sections from top to bottom, each depicting one of the Winter Olympics events from 1972 to 2022. Coding categories were developed to analyse text layout, lines, and white space. However, the colours and images of these emblems and symbols of the Winter Olympic Games were predetermined, so colours and images were not examined in this study. This exploratory study of Generation Z offers an analytical approach to understanding the reading orientation of Generation Z and serves as a basis for future research. Additionally, several informants tended to scan the poster for information, even though it was not indicated that the poster could be interacted with via an app on their mobile phones.

A comprehensive metric scheme for characterizing the heterogeneity of urban thermal landscapes: A case study of 14-year evaluation in Beijing

Urbanization has affected land surface temperature (LST) significantly. The spatial average of LST is widely applied to evaluate urban heat islands (UHI), but a simple comparison of mean temperature is insufficient to evaluate the heterogeneity of LST and the effectiveness of urban heat mitigation strategies. This study took the spatial distribution of LST as the thermal landscape and firstly employed 3D landscape metrics to analyze its spatial heterogeneity. To perform collaborative analysis with UHI, the urban–rural differences of landscape metrics were defined as thermal metric islands (TMI). Significant UHI and TMI were revealed by temperature amplitude, aggregation, and complexity parameters, indicating higher temperature fluctuation and fragmentation in urban regions. Before 2007, the standard deviation of thermal surface, landscape fragmentation, and shape irregularity increased significantly, particularly in the suburbs. Later, benefiting from the Summer Olympic Games, the temperature fluctuation, fragmentation, and shape complexity decreased obviously, and UHI intensity hit the lowest. Both UHI intensities and TMI increased after 2010, and various metrics suggest that maximum temperatures, landscape fragmentation, and shape complexity declined over most of the district, even as the mean temperatures increased. This study concludes that urban temperatures have risen at a higher rate than suburban areas, but the thermal landscape composition and configuration have changed more dramatically in rural areas.

Paris 2024 Olympic and Paralympic Games – an Opportunity for (Competitive) Sports

Paris 2024 Olympic and Paralympic Games – an Opportunity for (Competitive) Sports

The Influence of Game-Related Statistics on the Final Results in FIBA Global and Continental Competitions

Sport, particularly in the realm of professional competition, is a domain of human endeavor that is increasingly dependent on the use of analytical statistical information. Consequently, mathematics and statistics are becoming increasingly crucial elements in sports. Although experts recognize the importance of analytics in women’s basketball, the literature addressing this subject remains limited. The objective of this study is to employ quantitative methodologies to discover prevailing patterns in global women’s basketball representation. The entities examined in this article were the games contested during the 2021 Olympic Games, the 2022 World Cup, and the 2023 continental championships. Two regression models were created for the research, using thirteen standard variables observed in the game. The evaluation of the regression model was conducted using the stepwise regression method, incorporating dimensionality reduction based on the outcomes of factor analysis. Among the 14 models that were observed, 13 of them exhibited strong and moderate linkages, while only 1 displayed weak connections and lacked statistical significance. The primary factors that account for the disparity between winning and losing teams in games are primarily associated with shooting accuracy toward the basket. When examining individual championships, the percentage surpassed 50% in all cases except for AfroBasket. However, when considering the overall results, the significance of shooting rose to 86%. The variable representing offensive rebound efficiency had a significant influence on the outcome, being present in all individual competitions, whereas defensive rebound efficiency was only considered in the overall results.

Beyond the Rings: Exploring the Cultural and Behavioral Impact of the 2024 Paris Olympics

The Olympic Games stand as a pinnacle of human achievement, captivating global attention for over a century. Beyond the remarkable athletic displays, they serve as a rich tapestry for studying the intricate interplay of psychology, sociology, politics, and behavior. The forthcoming 2024 Paris Olympics offer a unique lens to probe deeper into these phenomena, serving as a catalyst for cutting-edge research across disciplines. This special issue of American Behavioral Scientist aims to illuminate the multifaceted dimensions of the Games, exploring their profound implications on human behavior, performance, identity, media, culture, and statecraft.

Development of a video encryption algorithm for critical areas using 2D extended Schaffer function map and neural networks

This paper proposes an encryption algorithm for crucial areas of a video based on chaos and a neural network, which SVEA (Selective Video Encryption Algorithm). The critical areas of each frame in a video are extracted by deep learning to the encryption system. A one-step encryption algorithm is used to encrypt these critical areas based on chaos, where scrambling and diffusion are simultaneously performed. A new chaotic system 2D extended Schaffer function map (2D-ESFM) is utilized in the encryption system, inspired by the Schaffer function. The system has demonstrated excellent performance through Lyapunov exponents (LEs), permutation entropy (PE), the 0-1 test, and other methods. Additionally, to resist chosen plaintext attacks, the secret key is generated by a neural network, with the critical areas of the video as inputs to the neural network. The chaotic system generates the biases and weights for the neural network. We evaluate SVEA on our dataset (Gymnastics at the Olympic Games) and public datasets. SVEA exhibits strong security characteristics compared to state-of-the-art algorithms and reduces time complexity by approximately 51.3%.

‘Is Hockey Moving with the Times?’ Amateurism, the All England Women’s Hockey Association and Field Hockey at the Olympic Games, 1972–1996

The International Olympic Committee’s (IOC) decision in 1973 to include women’s field hockey in their event forced the All England Women’s Hockey Association (AEWHA) into a difficult position. The Olympic movement under Lord Killanin, and then his successor Samaranch, eventually dropped the amateur ethos in favour of a more open and commercial world tournament. The decision to form a Great Britain (GB) governing council and a team in 1977 had fundamental consequences for England. No longer fielding the premier national team or as influential internationally, the AEWHA could not dictate their own priorities as had been the case in previous decades. Chief among them was the undermining of their amateur ethos forced AEWHA to choose between participation in the Olympics or not. The AEWHA leaders pragmatic approach created an increasingly professionalized player base, but selection to the team remained a privileged, unpaid and voluntary position. Despite AEWHA’s compromised stance towards the Olympics, England and Great Britain teams remained a competitive force winning the European championships in 1991 and Olympic bronze in 1992. Paradoxically by maintaining amateurism in women’s field hockey it caused the eventual irrelevancy of the ideals by the time open status was announced in 1998.

Optimizing residential light environments in simulated youth olympic village for improving young athletes’ sleep quality and reducing next-morning drowsiness

The concept of High-tech Olympics is pivotal in the modern Olympic Games. Athletes reside in the Olympic Village during the games. Therefore, ensuring a healthy and intelligent environment in the Olympic Village is crucial. A significant factor in this respect is the light environment. Previous studies indicated that adolescents are particularly sensitive to the residential light environment, adolescents experience improved sleep quality in a low correlated color temperature (CCT) light environment in the evening. However, little is known about the effects of low CCT light with varying illuminance on adolescents in the evening and the next morning. Hence, this study conducted a 17-day randomized, controlled trial (7-day baseline and 10-day light intervention) in a simulated Youth Olympic Village. Sixteen young professional athletes (12.3 ± 2.1 years of age) participated in this study. They were randomly assigned (1:1) to either a 160 lx (dim light group) or 200 lx (bright light group) environment 1 h before bedtime. Both groups had the same spectrum (CCT: 2000 K). The results of blood tests (melatonin and cortisol) and self-reported questionnaires consistently showed that young athletes in the dim light group significantly enhanced sleep quality and reduced next-morning drowsiness compared to those in the bright light group (p < 0.05). These findings demonstrate that illuminance, along with wavelength, crucially impacts young athletes' sleep quality and next-morning drowsiness in residential light environments, which provide valuable guidance for young athletes participating in the upcoming Youth Olympic Games.

The Development of a Table Tennis Outstanding Program of International Competition for Mixed Doubles

Background and Aims: Table tennis mixed doubles is an emerging event in the Olympic Games. my country's academic community has only begun to study table tennis mixed doubles techniques and tactics in recent years. Research on statistical methods for mixed doubles techniques and tactics is still in the preliminary exploration stage. Based on this, this article aims to explore and use more scientific and effective statistical methods to analyze the techniques and tactics of my country's main opponents in the table tennis mixed doubles event of the Paris Olympic Games, to find technical and tactical statistical methods suitable for the mixed doubles event, and to explore the mixed doubles The characteristics and winning rules of the game provide certain theoretical reference for preparing for the table tennis mixed doubles competition of the 2024 Paris Olympic Games. The objective of this research is to develop a table tennis program for international competitions for mixed doubles. Methodology: This article mainly uses the four-stage and four-round evaluation method of table tennis mixed doubles technical and tactical statistical methods as the research object, and analyzes the international mixed doubles competition held between November 2021 and August 2023 by four athletes from different countries ranked top two in the world. Analysis and in-depth study of major mixed doubles matches. First, we review previous literature on table tennis doubles technical and tactical statistical methods. Secondly, we searched the literature from authoritative academic platforms at home and abroad in the past 10 years and selected and formulated technical and tactical research methods related to this article. Then, refer to Simi Scout technical and tactical video-related analysis software to study the technical and tactical use, points gained and lost, and competitive ability of the world's outstanding mixed doubles athletes in the game, at the same time. Combining the gender characteristics of table tennis doubles and mixed doubles events, a four-round model of serving and receiving for men and women was established, and a four-stage and four-round evaluation method of technical and tactical statistical methods for table tennis mixed doubles events was established. Finally, the study is summarized and recommendations are made. Results: The statistical method of "Four Stages and Four Rounds Evaluation Method" used in this article is a new technical and tactical statistical method for table tennis mixed doubles projects based on previous research on table tennis doubles. It is based on both theory and practice. Perspective, it improves the existing technical and tactical statistical indicator system, provides a theoretical reference for winning the gold medal in the table tennis mixed doubles event of the 2024 Paris Olympic Games and the future training and competition of my country's table tennis mixed doubles event, and enhances the overall strength of China's table tennis mixed doubles event., contributing to the continuous development of the world table tennis mixed doubles project Conclusion: The main conclusions of this article are as follows: 1. The four-stage and four-round evaluation method of mixed doubles technical and tactical statistical methods is feasible and effective. 2. The eight-round three-stage index evaluation method can specifically analyze the performance of athletes' techniques and tactics in a certain round, but it cannot reflect the use of techniques and tactics by mixed doubles athletes when facing different opponents. 3. The dual-system four-round evaluation method can analyze the advantages and disadvantages of rounds based on the gender differences between men and women, but it does not fundamentally solve the problem of inconsistency in the statistical data of each section. 4. The four-stage and four-round evaluation method can not only analyze the advantages and disadvantages of mixed doubles players according to gender characteristics but also summarize the techniques and tactics used by mixed doubles players when facing different opponents.

IOC Olympian Health Cohort: a study protocol for a 15-year, prospective, Olympian health study across Summer and Winter Olympic sports

Prevention of sports injury and illness and protection of athlete health are key mandates of the IOC. Methodological limitations in Olympic Games surveillance and retired Olympian studies mean there are...

Redefining Duty of Care: Challenges and Solutions for Network Service Providers

With the rapid development of Internet and algorithm technology, how to judge the "duty of care" of network service providers has become a new problem in the field of network infringement. The main topic of this paper is to focus on what kind of duty of care network service providers should bear, and how to solve the problem of responsibility division and commitment in practice. It begins with a comprehensive analysis of the current legal frameworks in China, comparing them with global standards, particularly focusing on the United States' "Safe Harbor" principle and the European Union's Digital Single Market Copyright Directive. It further discusses the challenges of enforcing the duty of care, emphasizing the variability in judicial interpretations and the difficulties in applying traditional legal principles to modern digital contexts. It highlights the need for clearer definitions and preemptive legal measures to mitigate infringement risks, as demonstrated by proactive copyright declarations like those implemented during the 2022 Beijing Winter Olympic Games. Additionally, it examines the potential misuse of the duty of care in competitive business environments, suggesting judicial and legislative strategies to prevent abuse and ensure a fair application of the law. The conclusion advocates for a collaborative approach to reforming duty of care standards, involving a range of stakeholders from legislators to copyright holders, to ensure they are robust yet flexible enough to accommodate future technological developments.