The recent COVID-19 pandemic forced the Tokyo 2020 Paralympic Games to be held a year later and with restrictive measures for athletes, staff, and organizers. One of the most significant restrictions was the absence of an audience, which created a unique condition for the event. This study aimed to compare the results of different sports between the Rio 2016 Paralympic Games (held with the audience) and the Tokyo 2020 Paralympic Games (held without the audience).The results from both editions of the Paralympic Games were obtained from the historical archive of the International Paralympic Committee. To conduct the analysis, two mathematical calculations were utilized: a market share (MS) and a sport performance share (SPS). A comparison between the two macro-categories of subjective and objective sports was carried out. In case of any significant change, each sport within the macro-category was analyzed individually. The independent samples Welch t-test was employed to compare the SPS values.Significant changes were observed only in the objective sports between the two Paralympic Games editions (p<0.001), with the highest changes noted in swimming and athletics (p<0.001). Although the effects varied only between objective sports and among some sports analyzed, our study demonstrates the influence of the audience on sports performance in Paralympic athletes. These results could be of interest to sports psychologists and mental coaches focusing on psychological training in high-level athletes, particularly in managing audience support.
Leale et al. (Wed,) studied this question.