Department of Sports Training,Beijing Sport University,Beijing,China
With the favorable climate and warm support from a home court,how to(further)avoid the disadvantages and give full play to the benefits as the host country is the hot topic of competition preparation currently.In this article,the overall analysis operated on the host effect of several recent Winter Olympic Games with research methods including literature review,expert interview,questionnaire survey,mathematical statistics and logic analysis,etc.,as to establish a more comprehensive understanding of the host effect in Winter Olympic Games and provide reference to the preparation and participation of competition.The study result indicates the following:(1)Gold medals of major sports won by the host country teams/individuals have increased in general from the recent 6 Winter Olympic Games.It is found in the comparison of the number of major sports in which the host won gold medals at four Winter Olympics,that the quantity of major sports with gold medals by the host significantly higher than that of the last one or the one after Winter Games.Further more,four hosts got obvious increase in the number of major sports with gold medals at current Winter Games than at last one,which can be seen more clearly in the case of France and the United States.(2)The host country has better chances in achieving good performance in physical efficiency dominated event,team sports.Through the comparison of the numbers of gold medals and their ratios won by the hosts in physical efficiency and skill dominated events in recent four Winter Games,it can be seen that the United States,Norway and Italy as hosts got obvious increase in the number of gold medals in physical efficiency dominated sports at current Winter Games than at last one and the one after.Considering Norway as an example,it won 6 gold medals in physical efficiency dominated events at 1992 Winter Games.In 1994 Olympic Games it got 9 gold medals while snatched 10 in physical efficiency dominated events at 1998 Olympic Games.Neither significant difference of eventgroup nor obvious disadvantages in physical efficiency dominated events with the host were found.Therefore,to some extent we can draw a conclusion that compete at home may achieve better performance in physical efficiency dominated events.(3)The home advantage of host effect has difference in event-groups of measuring,scoring and targeting.The host countries do not have greater advantage in events that need measurement,which mainly caused by the objective judgment to the performance of this kind of events.The United States and Canada have significant increase in the gold medals ratio in scoring events,whilst other four hosts keep no difference of gold medals ratio in scoring events,which can tell the host has certain advantage in scoring sports.As for the targeting events,except the U.S.and Canada won the championship in ice hockey and curling,the other four hosts present no advantage.Accordingly,we can preliminarily rule that the host has certain advantage in targeting events.