El Estado detrás de las medallas

Vía Cine y Política llego a este interesante artículo de Gary Becker sobre la competición por obtener medallas en las Olimpiadas y los mecanismos de financiación e incentivos que hay detrás de ella.

Es lógico que, a igualdad de circunstancias, un país con una rénta per cápita más alta tenga mejores atletas:

It is further entirely reasonable that countries with higher per capita incomes, other things the same, do better in Olympic and other international competitions. Parents of promising athletes have more resources to hire coaches, buy equipment, and get other help in their quest to improve the performances of their children. High schools and colleges have more resources to spend on their athletic programs. Private groups establish Olympic and other committees with generous resources to help in the training of the most promising athletes. Companies sponsor athletic programs and offer other incentives- such as the $1 million that Speedo promised Michael Phelps if he succeeded in winning 8 gold medals at the Beijing Olympics. (...)

La razón por la que China y otros países autoritarios son tan exitosos en las Olimpiadas está en parte ligada a su condición de dictaduras: tienen más autonomía para redistribuir recursos a la promoción de atletas y para coaccionar a los padres o a los propios atletas.

The importance of communist and other single party countries on the surface is more surprising. It is not that these countries send more athletes to the Olympics than other countries with similar populations, etc- they do not- but authoritarian countries do better per athlete that they send. The reason appears to be that governments of these countries spend considerable resources and energies in finding young promising athletes, and in providing systematic training and equipment in centralized facilities. According to the NY Times' editorial of August 17th, China has spent billions of dollars on its state sports program since the 2000 Sydney Games. These countries also can sometimes use their authoritarian structure to force parents to let their children be taken to centralized facilities, and have refused to allow athletes who win medals to retire. Such activities clearly help explain China’s rapid rise to athletic prominence, but the same considerations were behind East Germany's success in earlier Olympics, and in the great success of the Soviet Union prior to its breakup.