Author(s): CUI, D.1,2, GUO, J.2,3, ZHANG, X.2, Institution: CAPITAL UNIVERSITY OF PHYSICAL EDUCATION AND SPORTS, Country: CHINA, Abstract-ID: 1754

INTRODUCTION:
The impact of COVID-19 pandemic on elite sports has been widely reported since 2020 [1]. Although many countries have undertaken elite sports recovery programs in Olympic preparations [2], many concerns remained ahead of the Beijing 2021 Summer Olympic and Paralympic Games and the Beijing 2022 Winter Olympic and Paralympic Games [3]. But without global post-Olympic evidence, it is hard to answer pre-Olympic concerns and measure the recovery of elite sports across countries. How and how much the intra-pandemic Olympic Games have been affected remains unknown. The aim of this study was to assess the association between domestic COVID-19 epidemic and global Olympic competitiveness of all the member countries.
METHODS:
The investigated games were the Tokyo 2020 Summer Olympic and Paralympic Games, and the Beijing 2022 Winter Olympic and Paralympic Games. Competitiveness was characterized in both participation quotas and medal shares. For pandemic, transmission and symptoms were quantified by the number of infections and deaths, respectively. All data were collected from the Internet. Data were sourced from the official websites of 7 organizations, including IOC, IPC, WHO, UN Department of Economic and Social Affairs, Eurostat, Johns Hopkins University and Our World in Data. The Olympic variables were the change in participant share (CPS) and the change in medal share (CMS) for a country during the past Olympiad. The pandemic variables were the cumulative number of death cases (CDC) and CDC per unit of population (CDCP), and the cumulative number of the confirmed cases (CCC) and CCC per unit of population (CDCP). The study was conducted using SPSS 26.0 statistical software with 2-sided Pearson correlation analysis. Significance was set at P<0.05.
RESULTS:
At the Tokyo Summer Olympics, CPS was most significantly positively correlated with CDC (r204=0.27, P<0.001) and CMS was most significantly negatively correlated with CDC (r100=−0.46, P<0.001). At the Beijing Winter Paralympics, CPS was most significantly positively correlated with CDCP (r52=0.35, P= 0.010) and CMS was most significantly negatively correlated with CCC (r23=−0.51, P=0.013). No significant associations were found between Olympic variables and pandemic variables at the Tokyo Summer Paralympics and the Beijing Winter Olympics.
CONCLUSION:
At the Tokyo Summer Olympics, elite sports in urbanized countries with more severe pandemics recovered faster overall, but their medal competitiveness also declined more. This effect faded at the Beijing Winter Olympics, but appeared at the Winter Paralympics, highlighting the delayed impact of pandemics on global elite para sports. This study also demonstrates the power of multi-sourced Internet ‘big data’, and may inspire research across public health and elite sports and inform decision-making in elite sports recovery from pandemic.
REFERENCES:
1. Vitale JA et al., Biology of Sport, 2021
2. Kemp S et al., Br. J. Sports Med, 2021
3. Fagher K et al., BMJ Open Sport Exercise Med, 2022