OREANDA-NEWS.  June 21, 2012. This is the fourth time that PwC has published an analysis Economic Briefing Paper: Modelling Olympic performance of how medal performance at the Olympic Games can be linked to such factors as past Olympic performance, economics and state support for sport, reported the press-centre of PwC.

The following economic and political factors were found to be statistically significant in explaining the number of medals won by each country at previous Olympic Games:

Population

Average income levels (measured by GDP per capita at PPP exchange rates)

Whether the country was previously part of the former Soviet/communist bloc (including Cuba and China) that tended to give significant state support to Olympic sports; and

Whether the country was the host nation.

John Hawksworth, the report’s author and PwC’s UK Chief Economist, says:

“In general, the number of medals won increases with the population and economic wealth of the country. David can sometimes beat Goliath in the Olympic arena, although superpowers like the US, China and Russia continue to dominate the top of the medals table

Some of the more interesting conclusions to be drawn from the PwC model are:

Now it is no longer the host country, China may find it more difficult to stay ahead of the US (as it did in Beijing on gold medals, although not total medals won).

The PwC model suggests that the British team could win around 54 medals this time around, beating an already exceptionally good performance of 47 medals in Beijing due to home advantage, which has proved significant in all other recent Olympics except Atlanta in 1996.

Russia is projected by the model to continue to perform strongly in third place (68 medals).

The model still suggests that India is a significant underperformer relative to its population and GDP, with a model target of around 5-6 medals for London after allowing for past performance. The most plausible explanation is that, with the exception of hockey, Indian sport tends to focus on events that are not included in the Olympics, notably cricket.

The model estimates suggest that larger Western European countries such as Germany, France, Italy, Spain and the Netherlands might be expected to broadly match their Beijing 2008 performances – though they will no doubt hope to do better.

Countries where the model targets for London are below those for Beijing include Australia (still in gentle decline from the heights of Sydney in 2000) and some former Soviet bloc countries where the legacy advantages of strong state support from the pre-1991 era may be gradually fading, such as Ukraine and Belarus.

As well as Great Britain, countries that the model suggests have the potential to do better than in Beijing include: Japan, Brazil (in the run-up to being the host country in 2016), Romania and Turkey.