Doping a problem but Olympic success remains a driver of national pride, shows global poll for BBC World Service
A new BBC World Service poll suggests a majority say doping scandals reduce their interest in the Olympics. Overall pride in how well their country performs in the Games has softened since before the London Games.
Published: 27 July 2016
"The poll suggests that the Olympic Games continue to positively stimulate national pride, especially among citizens in emerging economies"
The poll, conducted by GlobeScan among more than 19,000 people in 19 countries between December 2015 and April 2016 asked the public to what extent their attention to the Olympic Games is negatively affected due to the use of performance-enhancing drugs by some athletes.
On average, across the 19 countries surveyed, a majority of 57% say that the use of doping has “a lot” or “some” negative effect on their level of attention to the Games. Majorities of those polled in 13 of the 19 countries say they feel this way, with citizens of South Korea (78%), Peru (74%), Australia (70%), and France (69%) most negatively affected by doping. Conversely, Germans (35%) and Brazilians (36%) are least affected.
Asked how much their country’s performance in the Olympic Games affects the pride they feel in being a citizen of their country, an average of 62% of citizens say that their country’s performance has “a lot” or “some” impact on their national pride. Across 16 countries polled by the BBC on this question in both 2011 and 2016, the overall proportion has decreased slightly (61% today vs. 63% in 2011), and the percentage saying “a lot” has fallen seven points (from 37% to 30%) suggesting a softening from the level prior to the London Olympics.
Though majorities in 15 out of the 19 countries surveyed link their sense of national pride, at least to some extent, with their country’s performance during the Olympic Games, views between countries differ widely. The impact of Olympic success in driving national pride is strongest in emerging economies, especially Indonesia (78%), Kenya (76%), Russia (74%), Peru (72%), and India (71%). It is weakest in Brazil (42%), Germany (48%), the US (48%), and France (50%).
GlobeScan Chairman Doug Miller commented: “The poll suggests that the Olympic Games continue to positively stimulate national pride, especially among citizens in emerging economies. However, the poll results also underscore the important role the World Anti-Doping Agency plays in protecting the Olympic franchise.”
Detailed Findings
Despite the prospect of hosting the 2016 Summer Olympics in Rio this August, a decreasing number of Brazilians say the way their athletes perform during the Games has an effect on their national pride. Only 42% express this opinion (6 points below the percentage recorded a few months before the London Olympics), and they are now largely outnumbered by those who say Olympic performance matters only “a little” or “not at all” to the pride they feel in being Brazilian (58%).
The picture in Brazil contrasts with the situation in other developing and middle-income countries where, like in the 2011 poll, the feeling of national pride among citizens continues to get excited from achievements at the Olympics, even if to a lesser degree in some countries. Although they show the most vibrant reactions, the sense of pride among Indonesians and Kenyans has softened (78%, down 5 points from 2011 in Indonesia; 76%, down 15 points in Kenya). It has also decreased in Nigeria (56%, down 5 points) and in Ghana (51%, down 13 points). However, the impact of Olympic success in driving national pride has strengthened in Russia (74%, up 14 points) and India (71%, up 5 points), and is stable in Peru (72%) and Pakistan (65%).
In the more industrialised economies, the impact is more limited. Except in Spain (68% feeling proud, up 9 points) and Canada (62%), opinions in France, Germany, and the US are divided, with roughly as many saying that Olympic performance does affect their national pride as those saying it matters “just a little” or “not at all.” In the UK, despite a record medal sweep at home in 2012, a narrow majority (53%) say the way British athletes perform impact their sense of pride of being Britons, a proportion fairly stable with 2011 (50%).
Looking at the impact of doping on people’s engagement with the Olympic Games, Brazil and Germany stand quite at odds with the dominant mood, as the only two countries with majorities saying that the use of doping affects “just a little” or “not at all” the way they bond with the Olympics (62% and 60%, respectively).
Russian opinion is interesting (and relevant to the current doping controversy that could see several of the Russian athletes barred from competing in the Rio Olympics). Russians are among the most engaged and likely to consider Olympic performance as a catalyst for national pride (and seemingly increasingly so in the aftermath of the Sochi Games in 2014). But Russians are split on the question of doping: 49% (third highest proportion) lean the same way as the majority does in Brazil and Germany, but an equal proportion (49%) report that the use of drugs by some athletes negatively affects their attention to the Olympics.
The results are drawn from a telephone and in-person survey of 19,116 adult citizens across 19 participating countries in total. The poll was conducted for the BBC World Service between 2 December 2015 and 15 April 2016 by the international opinion research and consultancy firm GlobeScan and its national research partners. Within-country results are considered accurate within +/- 2.8 to 3.5% 19 times out of 20. Urban-only samples were used in Brazil, China, Indonesia and Kenya.
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