How to influence national pride? The Olympic medal index as a unifying narrative

TLDR

Elite sport is often regarded as one of the main vehicles for articulating national pride and stimulating national cohesion. The article explores various notions of pride and nationality as related to success in elite sport. A public survey measured effects on national pride in the Netherlands regarding the men’s European Football Championships, the Tour de France, Wimbledon, and the 2008 Beijing Olympic Games. The survey shows that a sense of belonging precedes sport‑related pride, that national pride is a stable country characteristic with only minor temporary fluctuations from sporting success, and that there is no empirical evidence for a quantitative bucket‑notion of pride used in political rhetoric to boost medal counts.

Abstract

Elite sport is often regarded as one of the main vehicles for articulating national pride and stimulating national cohesion. In this article, we explore a variety of different notions of pride and nationality as related to success in elite sport. We present the results of a public survey, which measured some of the effects on national pride in the Netherlands, related to the men’s European Football Championships, the Tour de France, Wimbledon and the Olympic Games in Beijing (all in the summer of 2008). The results suggest that a sense of belonging is a necessary condition that precedes rather than results from sport-related pride. This supports the notion of national pride being a rather stable characteristic of countries, notwithstanding specific situations (such as sport success) that may lead to minor and temporary fluctuations. There seems to be no empirical evidence for the — primarily quantitatively understood — concept of pride (as a ‘bucket-notion’), which is often implicit to the political rhetoric used to increase sport funding with the aim of winning more medals to generate an increase in national pride.