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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!"
How about we forgot about this silly talley and watch the outcome as it unfolds...
A gold medal may require skill, but it needs a whole lot more besides (unfortunately).
For the newer countries entering the competitions, they get better with better facilities and coaching. The US gymnastics got better with the addition of Bella K. The Chinese basketball gets US coaching. International Basketball players get NBA experience and are learning how to trounce the US 'Dream?' team.
Evolution can only be used in this context to explain the improvement of training principles.
Biological evolution would just predict athletes would just get more 'athletier'.
Thorpedo's victory was an upset?
WTF?
Thorpey held the WR, had 9 of the fastest times ever, had not been nbeaten in the distance for 4 years.... add to that Phelps had never gone close to any of Thorpe's times.
Phelps lowered his PB and got third - which, when you look at his performances over the distance is in fact a bloody good result personally for him.
The fact is, it would have been a pretty major upset for Thorpe to lose to Phelps. It was always goignt o be a race between Hoogie and Thorpe, NOT Thorpe and Phelps - it was only moron commentators who were talkign up the clash that begged to differ.
Past performances always said Thorpe verses Hoogie and guess what - that's exactly how it turned out.
Admittedly, the race did live up to hype as an event. It was a damn good one.
Maybe his win has to do with the fact that the vast majority of aussies live near the ocean.
You North Americans are such bad losers. There are any number of posts here claiming that "other countries" are doing well because they are trained by North American coaches, or because train in the USA.
Now you claim that perhaps the didn't win the swimming because Aussies live near the ocean. Jeeze...
Can't you just accept that sometimes althletes from other countries might be better than the USA ones?
I understand that American media makes a big deal about the total number of medals, because the US has earned a lot of medals, but not many golds. Whereas last I checked Australia and China were dominating in terms of GOLD medals. I think this needs to be more clear.
You're absolutely right - the commentators needed to talk up Phelps' attempt for 7 golds - Particularly here in America - which obviously is now over.
That said, Phelps did make it a decent race, as his time was closer to Thorpe's than it was to the 4th place finisher. As you mention, he did set a personal best in his attempt, and there's no shame in that. He also had a real chance at silver (vdH was closer to Phelps than Thorpe).
But ultimately, this was a one-man race from the beginning. And there are some of us Americans whose memories include Sydney and what Thorpe did there. He's not an all around swimmer, but he kills in the free.
-Looking for a job as a materials chemist or multivariat
Statistical estimators being broadcasted without sample variances, t-stats or significance tests.
I mean, would it KILL them to print a standard coefficient table or equation?
Disclaimer: Yes, I teach econometrics.