Macro-environmental factors influencing the preparation of the Ukrainian Olympic team: a comparative PEST analysis of the Tokyo 2020 and Paris 2024 cycles

The study examined how macro-environmental factors influenced the preparation of the Ukrainian national Olympic team across two distinct crisis contexts—the Tokyo 2020 and Paris 2024 Olympic cycles. A PEST-based expert survey was applied to assess political, economic, socio-cultural, and technological factors. Two validated questionnaires were used. Twenty-four high-performance athletes who participated in the Olympic Games were involved as experts. The structure of macro-environmental influence differs between the two cycles. In the Tokyo cycle, economic factors had the greatest weight (43%), while political and socio-cultural factors played a more limited role. In contrast, the Paris cycle was characterized by a substantial increase in the importance of political (28%) and socio-cultural (25%) factors, largely related to wartime conditions. Technological factors remained constrained in both cycles. Expert agreement was moderate but statistically significant (Tokyo: W = 0.38, p < 0.001; Paris: W = 0.26, p < 0.001). The findings show that macro-environmental influences on Olympic preparation are not stable and shift across crisis contexts. The proposed instrument offers a structured way to assess the direction and relative importance of external pressures in national sport systems.
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Bibliographic Details
Subjects:
Notations:sport history and sport politics
Published in:Frontiers in Sports and Active Living
Language:English
Published: 2026
Volume:8
Pages:1863853
Document types:article
Level:advanced