And a special Olympic medal for Daniel Johnson
Colorado College professor Daniel Johnson has come up with a formula based on factors such as economics and politics, and not athletic ability, for predicting the overall Olympics medal count. For the Beijing Games, he said that the USA would win the most medals with 103. He also claimed that they'd earn 33 golds, while Russia would get 28 gold medals and 95 in total. He predicted that China would win 44 golds and 89 medals overall.
How did the professor do? Well, take a look. China won 51 golds and ended with 100 medals. Russia got 23 golds and won a total of 72 medals and the USA got 36 golds and a total of 110 medals. In other words, Johnson's predictions ended up 93 percent on-target (92 percent for gold medals). Not bad as such forecasts go, eh?
Does the haul of 100 medals mean that Beijing's Project 119 worked? In case you haven't heard, that was a training drive to make China competitive in 119 events, from archery to wrestling. With 88 of the golds in this year's Games awarded in swimming and athletics, events in which China lagged in the past, this year was expected to either mark a dramatic turning point — or a colossal disappointment. Well, "Project 119 Didn't Work Despite China's Gold Lead" says Michael David Smith.
However, those of us who despise despotic regimes can't take much comfort from this fact. China has a vast population that it can draw into its sports programmes and with the country's GDP expected to pass the overall size of the US economy by 2020, the communists will eventually have a better funded and bigger population version of the old East German totalitarian sports system. Meaning that China can be expected to win the most medals from 2012 onwards. But seeing that the 2012 Games will be in London, we shouldn't forget what Harold Macmillan said when once asked by a young journalist about what can most easily torpedo political plans. "Events, dear boy. Events". Don't know if Mac meant Olympic events, though.
