Which is more important for Team GB athletes, the support from the home crowd or the pressure to win?

Professor Kathleen Ginis of McMaster University in Ontario, Canada, has researched the subject among Canadian ice hockey teams.

Speaking to the Today programme, she explained that in a crunch or a tie situation, the advantage for the home team would "turn the other way" as it was "the most pressure-filled of situations".

She said: "The cost of failure for the home team is just so much greater."

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