A classification of elite sports’ national systems and its connection with international success

The SPLISS project (Sports Policy factors Leading to International Sporting Success) develops better understanding of elite sport systems and factors that contribute to sporting success. The methodology makes use of a large sport policy inventory as well as surveys for athletes, coaches and performance directors. Critical success factors were defined and combined in nine policy pillars: finance, organization, sport participation, talent identification, athletic career, training facilities, coaches, competition and research. SPLISS 2.0 provided results that shaped elite sport policies in 15 countries in 2011 (De Bosscher et al, 2015).

This paper aims to answer the question if we can define evidence-based profiles of elite sport systems, and find a relation with the international success. An explorative multivariate point of view was chosen in order to define clusters (cluster analysis) as well as new constructed superpillars that summarized the elite sport policies scores in few components (principal component analysis). For a proper understanding of the results, socio-economic factors were also included in the analysis (modelling). The clusters have been showed to identify four coherent elite sport policy profiles related to socio-economic and success factors.