Ethiopia and Kenya at the Summer Olympic Games: Comparison of Performances

Abstract

The purpose of this study was to compare the performances of Ethiopian and Kenyan at the summer Olympic Games held so far. The  study has employed an empirical research design. The two countries were selected purposively due to the historical competition that  exists between them and their over dominance of the rest world in endurance races. The data was collected through the internet from  several sites. The number of sites for data collection depends on the number of times each country has been participated at the Summer  Olympic Games. 15 and 16 sites were visited for Ethiopia and Kenya respectively. The data collected was sorted into men and women.  Percentage, mean and standard deviation were used to describe the performances of athletes from the two countries. The independent  sample t-test served as the statistical instrument for testing the hypotheses set out at .05 alpha levels. The result revealed, out of 124  total medals won by Kenya 88 (70.97%) came through the men athletes and the women athletes contributed 36 (29.03%) medals. Ethiopia  has a total of 62 medals won by men and women athletes. As a result, 34 medals (54.84%) were won by men athletes while the  women contributed 28 medals (45.16%). On the other hand, the t-test result revealed a statistically significant difference in the total medal count between Kenya(M=7.75, SD=4.70) and Ethiopia (M=4.13, SD=2.80) conditions t(29)=-2.62 p=.02. The result for across country  comparison of the performance of men athletes in terms of total medal count revealed Kenyan (M=5.50, SD=3.16) significantly  outperformed Ethiopian (M=2.27, SD=1.34) conditions t(29)=-3.66 p=.00. On the other hand, statistically non-significant difference was  observed at the women side between the two countries. Based on the result obtained, it was suggested that particular attention should  be paid at the Ethiopian side to work on the athlete developmentprogrammes in varied events broadly in order to perform better in the  future.