Germany will top the medals table in this year鈥檚 Winter Olympics with 31 medals, 11 of them gold. Russia will be runners-up with 21 medals, 10 of them gold. Close behind will be the US and Norway.
Their accuracy is uncanny, considering they have never taken any athlete鈥檚 sporting prowess into account. Johnson and Ali base their predictions on little more than a country鈥檚 GDP, political situation, and its population, latitude and climate. They created their predictions by investigating how these factors were related to past Olympic achievements. The aim was to analyse how economic and political conditions can affect a nation鈥檚 sporting achievements.
As you might expect, they found that the probability of success is closely related to a nation鈥檚 wealth. But there were also surprises in the data. Athletes from communist and single-party regimes excel at winning medals, Johnson says. Contrary to popular belief, these nations don鈥檛 send disproportionately many athletes, but they consistently outperform other nations with the same economic and geographic attributes. The difference is, on average, 18 summer medals and 10 winter medals.
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Sun-soaked surprise
Another surprise is the role of temperature. Nations with a colder climate always outperform more sun-soaked ones鈥揺ven in the summer games.
Johnson and Ali鈥檚 paper, which they have submitted to Economica, concludes with a predicted medals table. They prefer to see these predictions not as a gambler鈥檚 guide to form, but rather as a measure of how well we should expect nations to perform given their political, economic and climatic situation. Rising above these expectations reveals the prowess and dedication of the team members.
鈥淲hen a nation consistently outperforms expectations based on political and economic factors, it shows there鈥檚 something special about the sporting community in that nation,鈥� Johnson says.
Philip Pope of the British Olympic Association says the BOA prefers not to make medal predictions for fear of putting undue pressure on its athletes. 快猫短视频 has no such qualms, however, so here鈥檚 our advice to the Great Britain team: based on economic and political factors, you can expect to win one gold and three other medals, finishing 15th. Anything better, and you鈥檒l be national heroes. Anything worse, and you could spark a revolution.