关注本公众号，回复“进群”进经济学人打卡群

概要：经济学人经过调查统计发现，中国在奥运中最擅长的项目往往是室内的、个人项目，而且往往是有裁判参与的。一篇很有趣的文章。

Which Olympic sports is China good at?

中国擅长哪个奥运项目？

The country’s athletes seem to prefer competing indoors and as individuals

中国运动员似乎更擅长室内和个人项目

8月 01, 2024 09:21 上午

ON JULY 29TH Lian Junjie and Yang Hao (pictured) leapt off a ten-metre-high platform, twisting and flipping in near-perfect synchronisation. Before the Olympic judges even posted their marks, Chinese fans celebrated. Then it became official: the pair had won gold, beating divers from Britain. China has won 50 gold medals in the sport of diving over the years, more than any other country.

7月29日，连俊杰和杨昊(如图)在10米高台跳水比赛中，同步的旋转和翻转近乎完美。在奥运会裁判公布分数之前，中国球迷已经开始庆祝了。接着，官方宣布：连俊杰和杨昊组合击败了英国跳水运动员，赢得了金牌。多年来，中国在跳水运动中赢得了50枚金牌，位居世界第一。

Olympic medals are a source of prestige for China. When China returned in the 1980s it won fewer medals than its size seemed to warrant. But as China grew richer, the state poured resources into the training of athletes. The upshot is that China’s share of gold medals at the summer games has risen from 2% in 1988 to 11% in 2021.

奥运奖牌是中国威望的来源之一。当20世纪80年代回归时，中国赢得的奖牌数少于它应该取得的数量。但是随着中国越来越富裕，国家投入大量资源训练运动员。结果是，中国在夏季奥运会上的金牌份额从1988年的2%上升到了2021年的11%。

China’s success tends to be concentrated in a handful of disciplines. Using statistics compiled by Olympedia, a database of results, we analysed the country’s performance at the summer games from 1992 to 2021. We assigned points for each medal handed out (three for gold, two for silver and one for bronze), then calculated China’s share of these points, or dominance score, in each sport. A score of one means China won every medal in a sport; a score of zero indicates that it won none.

中国的成功往往集中在少数几个项目。根据Olympedia汇编的统计数据，我们分析了中国在1992年至2021年夏季奥运会上的表现。我们给每一枚奖牌打分(金牌3分，银牌2分和铜牌1分)，然后计算中国在每项运动中的分数，或者说主导地位。1分意味着中国赢得了该项运动的所有奖牌；0分表示它一枚奖牌未得。

shuttlecocks and somersaults羽毛球和空翻

China dominates sports such as table tennis and badminton (see chart 1), winning over half of the Olympic medals ever awarded in the former. In diving China hopes to win most, if not all, of the eight golds on offer this year. Elsewhere in the pool, though, Chinese athletes are less buoyant. The country’s swimming team won just 7% of medal points in 2021.

中国在乒乓球和羽毛球等项目上占据主导地位(见图表1)，赢得了超过一半的奥运会奖牌。在跳水项目上，即使不是全部金牌，中国也有望赢得今年八枚金牌中的大部分。然而，在其他水上项目中，中国运动员就没那么活跃了。2021年，中国游泳队仅获得了7%的奖牌。

We wondered if the sports that China was good at had anything in common. To find out, we sorted events into various (non-exclusive) categories according to their characteristics, then built a model to see if these categories could explain China’s performance. Chart 2 shows how China’s dominance score moves up or down based on a sport’s inclusion in a category, all else being equal. (We excluded sports introduced since 2016 for lack of data.)

我们想知道中国擅长的运动项目是否有什么共同之处。为了找到答案，我们根据赛事特点将其分为各种(非排他性)类别，然后建立一个模型，看看这些类别是否可以解释中国的表现。图表2显示了在其他条件相同的情况下，中国的主导地位如何取决于一个运动项目在一个运动类别中的包含程度。(由于缺乏数据，我们排除了2016年以后引入的运动项目。)

China does better in sports played indoors compared with those played outside. It is bad at sports that involve physical contact between competitors and at big-team sports (three players or more in our definition). China does well in events that are scored by judges. We expected the results to show that it focuses on sports where there are lots of medals up for grabs—the better to increase its total. But its dominance score actually drops by 0.08 if a sport features more than five events.

与室外运动相比，中国在室内运动方面做得更好。中国不擅长运动员之间有身体接触的运动，也不擅长大型团队运动(在我们的定义中指有三个以上的运动员参与)。中国在有裁判打分的项目上表现出色。我们预计结果会是，中国专注于有很多奖牌可供争夺的体育项目——这有利于增加奖牌总数。但如果一项运动包含五个以上的项目，它的优势分数实际上会下降0.08。

America, in contrast, excels at team sports. Where a sport is played or if it is judged has no statistically significant effect on the performance of its athletes. America’s wins are also spread more widely. This may reflect differences in the countries’ sporting regimes. China relies on a training system that throws the state’s weight behind a few elite athletes. America has a more diffuse system which encourages participation in a wide range of sports. ■

相比之下，美国擅长团队运动项目。运动项目所在的场所或是否有裁判没有统计学上的显著影响。美国的优势项目分布得也更广。这可能反映了不同国家体育体制的差异。中国依靠的训练体系将国家力量投入到少数精英运动员的身上。美国的体系则更为分散，鼓励运动员参加各种各样的运动。■

扫码进经济学人打卡群：