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Have the Olympic Games become more migratory? A comparative historical perspective

Overview of attention for article published in Comparative Migration Studies, July 2017
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About this Attention Score

  • In the top 5% of all research outputs scored by Altmetric
  • Among the highest-scoring outputs from this source (#11 of 295)
  • High Attention Score compared to outputs of the same age (95th percentile)

Mentioned by

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6 news outlets
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17 X users
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2 Facebook pages

Citations

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17 Dimensions

Readers on

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27 Mendeley
Title
Have the Olympic Games become more migratory? A comparative historical perspective
Published in
Comparative Migration Studies, July 2017
DOI 10.1186/s40878-017-0054-2
Pubmed ID
Authors

Joost Jansen, Godfried Engbersen

Abstract

It is often believed that the Olympic Games have become more migratory. The number of Olympic athletes representing countries in which they weren't born is thought to be on the rise. It should, however, be noted that migration in the context of sports is hardly a new phenomenon. In this paper we hypothesise that, as a reflection of global migration patterns and trends, the number of foreign-born Olympians hasn't necessarily increased in all countries. Furthermore, it was expected that the direction of Olympic migration has changed and that foreign athletes increasingly come from a more diverse palette of countries. We conducted an analysis of approximately 40,000 participants from 11 countries who participated in the Summer Games between 1948 and 2012. The selected countries have different histories of migration and cover the distinction between 'nations of immigrants' (Australia, Canada, United States), 'countries of immigration' (France, Great Britain, Netherlands, Sweden), 'latecomers to immigration' (Italy, Spain) and, what we coin, 'former countries of immigration' (Argentina, Brazil). We conclude that the Olympic Games indeed have not become inherently more migratory. Rather, the direction of Olympic migration has changed and most teams have become more diverse. Olympic migration is thus primarily a reflection of global migration patterns instead of a discontinuity with the past.

X Demographics

X Demographics

The data shown below were collected from the profiles of 17 X users who shared this research output. Click here to find out more about how the information was compiled.
Mendeley readers

Mendeley readers

The data shown below were compiled from readership statistics for 27 Mendeley readers of this research output. Click here to see the associated Mendeley record.

Geographical breakdown

Country Count As %
Unknown 27 100%

Demographic breakdown

Readers by professional status Count As %
Student > Ph. D. Student 6 22%
Student > Bachelor 4 15%
Student > Doctoral Student 2 7%
Lecturer 2 7%
Student > Master 2 7%
Other 2 7%
Unknown 9 33%
Readers by discipline Count As %
Social Sciences 11 41%
Sports and Recreations 3 11%
Medicine and Dentistry 2 7%
Arts and Humanities 1 4%
Economics, Econometrics and Finance 1 4%
Other 0 0%
Unknown 9 33%
Attention Score in Context

Attention Score in Context

This research output has an Altmetric Attention Score of 56. This is our high-level measure of the quality and quantity of online attention that it has received. This Attention Score, as well as the ranking and number of research outputs shown below, was calculated when the research output was last mentioned on 14 August 2022.
All research outputs
#758,557
of 25,382,440 outputs
Outputs from Comparative Migration Studies
#11
of 295 outputs
Outputs of similar age
#15,617
of 324,886 outputs
Outputs of similar age from Comparative Migration Studies
#1
of 2 outputs
Altmetric has tracked 25,382,440 research outputs across all sources so far. Compared to these this one has done particularly well and is in the 97th percentile: it's in the top 5% of all research outputs ever tracked by Altmetric.
So far Altmetric has tracked 295 research outputs from this source. They typically receive a lot more attention than average, with a mean Attention Score of 13.0. This one has done particularly well, scoring higher than 96% of its peers.
Older research outputs will score higher simply because they've had more time to accumulate mentions. To account for age we can compare this Altmetric Attention Score to the 324,886 tracked outputs that were published within six weeks on either side of this one in any source. This one has done particularly well, scoring higher than 95% of its contemporaries.
We're also able to compare this research output to 2 others from the same source and published within six weeks on either side of this one. This one has scored higher than all of them