How Countries Compete for Success in Elite Sport: A Systematic Review
Metadatos
Mostrar el registro completo del ítemAutor
Gómez-Rodríguez, Jaime; Seguí-Urbaneja, Jordi; Teixeira, Mário Coelho; Cabello Manrique, DavidEditorial
MDPI
Materia
Sports systems Soft power Sports success
Fecha
2024-01-01Referencia bibliográfica
Gómez-Rodríguez, Jaime, Jordi Seguí-Urbaneja, Mário Coelho Teixeira, and David Cabello-Manrique. 2024. How Countries Compete for Success in Elite Sport: A Systematic Review. Social Sciences 13: 31. https://doi.org/10.3390/socsci13010031
Patrocinador
Spanish Ministry of Education, Culture, and Sport (Salvador de Madariaga–PRX 16/00367)Resumen
The ‘Global Sporting Arms Race’ is the term that describes the competition among different
countries to succeed in international sports competitions. The development of that peaceful competition
determines two outputs: an increase in soft power at the international level and a promotion of
the national identity and social impact. It means increasing the level of influence that the countries
obtain internationally as a cornerstone of the concept of a sporting nation with a proud and healthy
population. In order to explain the factors involved in the success of a sports system at the elite
level, a systematic review was carried out based on the PRISMA protocol in the databases Scopus,
SPORTDiscus, andWeb of Science. The findings of the study show that the factors that determine
success at the international level have received increased attention, as shown by the number of
publications since 2010. The results indicate the following research factors: (1) it was observed that
most researchers tend to carry out comprehensive analyses with a holistic perspective, while the
UK, Australia, Canada, and Spain carry out segmented analyses; (2) Olympic sports—especially
athletics—were the most analysed; while in non-Olympic sports, those with social influence predominate
in countries, such as netball; (3) the analysis of meso and micro factors is preferred over macro
factors; (4) quantitative studies are preferred through the analysis of primary sources, such as official
reports; and (5) the economic variable is the most common input, with medals reached at the elite
level being the most used output to check the correlation or significativity of the results.