Likewise, student athletes, especially in college sports, are often high performance despite being nominally amateurs.
Doping in sport is more common at elite levels, and research into performance-enhancing substances has been fuelled by the drive for success, this despite the practice being firmly illegal at almost all levels of play.
Separate state agencies may be responsible for high-performance sport and for mass sport; national governing bodies for a particular sport often have separate administrative units for supporting elite athletes and the funding of athletes likely to win Olympic medals.
In public policy, funding for high-performance sport may be justified for reasons of national prestige or as a marketing tool for encouraging mass sport.
Eastern Bloc countries invested in elite sport during the Cold War for propaganda purposes; some Western countries began establishing Institutes of Sport from the 1980s, with sports academies for nurturing promising young athletes.