1992 Olympic participants' pin

One of the key claims of any bid committee is that hosting the Olympic Games will give a lasting boost to the sporting success of the host nation. The facts show that this is not the case.

Host nations win 6 extra Gold medals in the year of hosting; they spend a bare minimum of £2 billion ($3.1 billion) of public money doing so. That equates to £330 million ($520 million) of taxpayers' money per gold medal.

In subsequent Games, on average, adjusting for the historic growth in the numbers of medals available, the increase in medals won has been completely eroded. There is no provable long-term advantage to hosting the Olympics.

Here is how it works in more detail:

• The host nation has historically seen an increase in its Gold Medal haul in the year it hosts the Games, amounting to just under 6 medals. In the subsequent Games, its Gold Medal haul drops back by 4 Golds to leave it two medals ahead of where it was before hosting the Games.
• However the number of medals during the past half centurey has been increasing by 7% each Olympiad. With the Olympics apparently now frozen at its current size, this won't happen any more. We can adjust for this by looking at the percentage of all Gold Medals that are claimed by host nations. This increases from 4.1% to 6.8% during the host's own Games, then drops back to 4.5% in the next Games. The residual improvement of 0.4% is not statistically significant.
• Hence, the only increase attributable to hosting is the 6 Gold Medals in the year of hosting. Even if you believe an Olympic Games can be hosted for a cost of just £2 billion (and there are plenty of reasons why you shouldn't), that's an amazing £330 million per incremental gold medal.
• In terms of total medals, the conclusions are similar: the haul of medals of any colour by the host city has historically increased from just under 25 to 35 during the hosting year. It then drops back to just over 28.
• However, adjusting for the 7% historical growth in medals awarded from one Olympiad to the next, the host nation's percentage take of all medals goes from 4.4% in the Games before hosting, to 5.9% when hosting, and then back to 4.3%. So the real increase is just the one-time jump by 10 medals in the hosting year, with no legacy.

This analysis is based on the 14 times the Games have been staged since WWII. On three occasions the data must be discarded as the host in question boycotted the Games either the year before or after hosting. For Sydney 2000 we will have to wait until 2004 to find out what will happen to the Australian medal haul in the subsequent Games. That leaves 10 data-points as follows:

			Previous Games	Host Games	Next Games
Golds
1948	London	GBR	4	3	1
1952	Helsinki	FIN	8	6	3
1956	Melbourne	AUS	6	13	8
1960	Rome	ITA	8	13	10
1964	Tokyo	JPN	4	16	11
1968	Mexico	MEX	0	3	0
1972	Munich	FRG/GER*	5	13	10
1988	Seoul	KOR	6	12	12
1992	Barcelona	ESP	1	13	5
1996	Atlanta	USA	37	44	40
	Average		7.9	13.6	10.0
	Change from previous Games			+5.7	-3.6
All medals
1948	London	GBR	14	23	11
1952	Helsinki	FIN	20	22	15
1956	Melbourne	AUS	11	35	22
1960	Rome	ITA	25	36	27
1964	Tokyo	JPN	18	29	25
1968	Mexico	MEX	1	9	1
1972	Munich	FRG/GER*	26	40	39
1988	Seoul	KOR	19	33	29
1992	Barcelona	ESP	4	22	17
1996	Atlanta	USA	108	101	97
	Average		24.6	35.0	28.3
	Change from previous Games			+10.4	-6.7
Gold as % of Awarded**
1948	London	GBR	3.1%	2.2%	0.7%
1952	Helsinki	FIN	5.8%	4.0%	2.0%
1956	Melbourne	AUS	4.0%	8.5%	5.3%
1960	Rome	ITA	5.2%	8.6%	6.1%
1964	Tokyo	JPN	2.6%	9.8%	6.3%
1968	Mexico	MEX	0.0%	1.7%	0.0%
1972	Munich	FRG/GER*	2.9%	6.7%	5.1%
1988	Seoul	KOR	2.7%	5.0%	4.6%
1992	Barcelona	ESP	0.4%	5.0%	1.8%
1996	Atlanta	USA	14.2%	16.2%	13.3%
	Average		4.1%	6.8%	4.5%
	Change from previous Games			+2.7%	-2.3%
All Medals as % of Awarded**
1948	London	GBR	5.6%	5.6%	2.4%
1952	Helsinki	FIN	4.9%	4.8%	3.2%
1956	Melbourne	AUS	2.4%	7.5%	4.8%
1960	Rome	ITA	5.3%	7.8%	5.4%
1964	Tokyo	JPN	3.9%	5.8%	4.7%
1968	Mexico	MEX	0.2%	1.7%	0.2%
1972	Munich	FRG/GER*	4.9%	6.7%	6.4%
1988	Seoul	KOR	2.8%	4.5%	3.6%
1992	Barcelona	ESP	0.5%	2.7%	2.0%
1996	Atlanta	USA	13.3%	12.0%	10.5%
	Average		4.4%	5.9%	4.3%
	Change from previous Games			+1.5%	-1.6%
* GER/FRG excludes DDR from 1968 to 1992
** this adjusts for average 7% increase in medals awarded each Olympiad