Olympics research outputs through an Altmetric lens

While the world’s attention has once again turned to the Olympic Games – with all eyes on the 2024 Paris Olympics – we decided to look at the research outputs related to the Olympics that have garnered attention beyond purely research circles.

The idea was to examine publications from the last 10 years with the word “Olympic” in the title and see which of those garnered the highest Altmetric Attention Scores (AAS). Do the Olympics-related publications with top billing (in terms of the highest AAS) reflect current societal concerns? With topics ranging from sustainability to economic impacts of the games and the implications of pandemics to gender identity featuring in the top five, this does indeed seem to be the case. 

Fig. 1: The top five research outputs with the highest Altmetric Attention Score

The last Summer Olympics in Tokyo, originally slated for 2020, was postponed until 2021 and held under the shadow of the COVID-19 pandemic. Perhaps unsurprisingly, given the significant public interest in publications related to COVID-19, the highest AAS for a publication with the word “Olympic” in the title is “Protecting Olympic Participants from Covid-19 — The Urgent Need for a Risk-Management Approach” by Sparrow et al. (2021) published in the New England Journal of Medicine. In the paper, the authors argued for a rigorous risk-management approach to protect Olympic participants from COVID-19. The authors are critical about existing plans for not being based on thorough risk assessments and call for more comprehensive measures to ensure the safety of participants and the public. 

Second on the list is a paper titled Climate change and the future of the Olympic Winter Games: athlete and coach perspectives by Scott et al. (2022), where the authors examine the impact of climate change on the Olympic Winter Games from the perspective of athletes and coaches. Their survey reveals that the frequency of unsafe conditions for snow sports has increased over the past 50 years and will continue to rise under all future climate scenarios. The authors  emphasize the need for the sporting world to inspire and accelerate climate action to ensure the future of winter sports.

A publication from 2024 that examines the hot button issue of gender identity is third on the list; authors Lundberg et al. critique the International Olympic Committee’s framework on gender identity and sex variations, arguing that it does not protect fairness for female athletes. 

Fourth on the top AAS list is Going for Gold, where authors Baade and Matheson investigate the economic costs and benefits of hosting the Olympic Games. They categorize costs into general infrastructure, specific sports infrastructure, and operational costs, while benefits include short-term tourist spending, long-term infrastructure improvements, and intangible benefits like civic pride. Their analysis concludes that hosting the Olympics is generally a money-losing proposition, especially for cities in developing countries, and suggests that changes in the bidding process might improve outcomes for potential hosts 

And staying on the theme of economic impact is the publication by Flyvbjerg et al. (2020), which explores why the costs of hosting the Olympics often exceed budgets. The authors identify that the costs follow a power-law distribution, making them highly unpredictable and prone to extreme overruns. The study attributes this to factors like fixed deadlines and the “Blank Check Syndrome.” 

Taken together, these studies underline the many challenges and considerations – financial burdens, environmental concerns, and issues such as gender identity – that come to light during global events such as the Olympics. And, the AAS shows that even in the context of sporting events, the themes that pique wider interest are very much aligned with the ongoing global conversations.

To learn more about the Altmetric Attention Score and how it can be used, visit the donut and Altmetric Attention Score page.