In earlier studies covering the period of 1964 through 1996 it was shown that general structural factors (level of economic, social and political development) have a strong impact on country's participation, performance and success probability in elite sport events, namely Olympic Games. Even though participation in Olympic Games has become more democratic and even though the impact of structural factors appears to have declined somewhat between 1964 and 1996, success by athletes from the Third World is still an exception and remains largely confined to a small number of sports. The paper presents an update of these earlier studies. By integrating the results of Sydney 2000 into the empirical framework it is examined whether the linkage between success rates and structural position in the world system has further weakened. The analysis shows that even though there is some evidence that success has become more evenly distributed, structural factors remain strong predictors of success. Sydney was very much dominated by a small number of capitalist core and (formerly) socialist countries. Thus, top level sports continue to reflect inequalities at the world level very closely.
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