Forecast: China to top medals table

You don’t need to wait and see which nation will win the most medals at the Beijing Summer Games. The wizards have already spoken.

Here is what they say: China will win the most medals (88), followed by the United States (87) and Russia (79).

If true, this will mark the first time China has ever topped the medals table at an Olympic Games.

The predictions come from economists at PriceWaterhouseCoopers, who regularly handicap the Olympic Games. Click here for the press release issued Monday.

The accounting firm says China has won significant advantage this year by being the host of the Summer Games, as well as its strong government support for sports and its growing economic strength.

“In general, the number of medals won increases with the population and economic wealth of the country,” said John Hawksworth, a macroeconomist who is the report’s author. “David can sometimes defeat Goliath in the Olympic arena, although superpowers like the US, China and Russia continue to dominate the top of the medals table.”

Among other conclusions of the report: “As the host nation in Beijing and an economy which has grown very strongly since 2004, the medal ‘target’ of 88 for China according to our model is much higher than its actual medal totals in Athens (63) or Sydney (59); in fact, the model predicts that China may be very slightly ahead of the US (87), although this difference is well within the margin of error of the model so the race for top place is really too close to call based on this analysis.”

By way of comparison, here are PWC’s projected list of top medal-winning countries. The second number is how many medals each won in Athens in 2004.

1. China                 88      63
2. United  States   87     103
3. Russia               79     92
4. Germany          43      48
5. Australia           41      49
6. Japan               34      37
7. France             30     33
8. Italy                  29      32
9. Britain              28      30
10. South Korea  27   30

China has attempted to tamp down down expectations it will sweep up medals.

Deputy Sports Minister Cui Dalin said last August: "America and Russia are stronger. We are far behind, especially in athletics, swimming and water sports. In the sports where we are traditionally strong, we have little space for improvement. America and Russia are in a leading group of their own, we are trying to be the leaders of the second group."

Then in March at a press conference I attended, he said: “We've got to take a pretty sober, objective view toward this. Overall, we're not a big sporting nation.”

He went on to say: “In the competition altogether, the United States and Russia are still well above our level.”

Any bets on who is right?

Comments

[A B]

In breadth and depth of athletic talent, the US is probably above both China and Russia.

In terms of the number of gold medals likely to be won, China will probably come out on top because that require a narrow, focused, concentration of expertise, talent, and resources on the chosen few.

On this, China is going to excel and either beat the US or come very close.

A dispassionate view of this would be that it takes a country with 1.3 Billion people to produce that, while the US produce the same with about 300 million people.

So on a per capita basis, China is far behind.

That is pretty close to the truth in a lot of areas, not just sports.

[Pffefer]

They are nuts. China will be lucky to keep the No.3 spot. But who cares?

[Micah Sittig]

The winner may be China but the losers will still be the Chinese people, where a widespread sporting culture for *all* the people gets no support from the government.

Another interesting trend: the top ten at the Athens Olympics collected 517 medals while the top ten at Beijing is forecasted to only collect 486 medals, an average of three less medals per country.

[WC]

Stop the Olympic and let PWHC has the final say in the Olympic metal awards. Just award all metals according to PWHC's estimation. Ask George Bush, Hu Jingtao, Gordon Brown, Putin(Sorry, who is the current president of Russia?), Angela Merkel etc., to get on a podium together. With metals dangling over their chests, shake hands, award metals and hug one and other, and we will have world peace. Richard Gere, Sharon Stone, Steven Spielberg, the entire population of Hollywood's rich and famous, and nameless millions in the West and in the world would get their boycotts. China would be very happy because Daila Lama would not have leverage any more, and all the big shots come to the Olymic party. The Olymic athletes would be very happy because their presidents, and Prime ministers get their metals for them. Except PWHC would be very depressed because it was accused going "soft" on China.

[ShaMao]

Of course the PwC HK/China firm is an Olympic sponsor...