Olympic Medal Prediction Model

bettiwettiwoo writes "Slate reports that PricewaterhouseCooper claims to have devised a model predicting the final medal tally for nations competing in the Olympic Games. GDP is of particular importance in bringing home the bacon, closely followed by population size and and past performance. Other factors can also affect the outcome: hosting the games usually gives a medal boost. With the possible exception of China, the titan nations of the games (US, Russia, China and Germany) are predicted to see a successive drop in their total medal tally in the future (and compared to the Sydney Games, the future starts now). So if you were wondering why the Iraqi soccer team seems on its way to the quarter finals, why Greece takes gold in synchronized diving, or why Michael Phelps has to eat Ian Thorpe's bubbles, don't worry: it's only evolution, baby, and it's all perfectly predictable!"

Comments

Re:Iraqi Soccer

[Daniel Dvorkin]

If you honestly think that the "Swift Boat Veterans For Truth" (none of whom actually served with Kerry; everyone still living who actually did serve with him supports his story) are being ignored, and that the AWOL Bush story had legs (or that it was based on "the careful accretion of no facts at all," when in fact it is quite clear to anyone who examines the facts of the case that the President of the United States is a deserter) after the way it was buried during the 2000 campaign, in contrast to the spurious "Clinton is a draft dodger" line that we heard ad nauseam for eight years ... in short, if you think the mass media has been anything but sycophantic toward the Republicans ... you're living in a world so different from reality that I'm not sure that there's any point to this discussion.