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

Olympics

[lachlan76]

The Olympics are about skill, and how many medals a country gets would depend on how skilled the athletes are.

Skill != Evolution

Re:Olympics

[DavidpFitz]

The Olympics are about skill, and how many medals a country gets would depend on how skilled the athletes are.

Nothing to do with the amount of money their country has to pump into sports, the facilities they have grown up with, who has the best doping doctors who get past detection. Nothing like that, of course. It's all about the individual's skill. Hmm.

A gold medal may require skill, but it needs a whole lot more besides (unfortunately).

Re:Olympics

[Lev13than]

In a similar exercise, a pair of business professors have predicteding the final Olympic medal count using socio-economic data rather than athletic performance. Andrew Bernard and Meghan Busse developed their methodology using four factors: population, per capita income, past performance, and a host effect.
They were 96% accurate in their predictions for the 2000 Games, including correctly guessing 97 total and 37 gold medals for the USA. Also discussed is why some countries, such as Australia, surpass expectations while others, particularly Canada and Japan, underperform relative to countries with similar populations/national income.
This year's predicted winners? The USA (93), Russia (83) and China (57). The full paper was published in the Feb 2004 Review of Economics and Statistics - summary here.

Re:Olympics

[Kombat]

who has the best doping doctors who get past detection.

Why does everyone insist on viewing doping as a "black-and-white" issue?

The human body is a very complex machine. The chemical reactions that take place in side are very complicated and sensitive. Athletes carefully monitor their nutrition, and supplement their bodies with well-timed servings of synthetic protein, creatine, and other compounds and hormones. Where do you draw the line? Should it be illegal to take protein shakes? What if a competitor eats a huge number of chicken breasts? Or drinks more than the allowable portions of milk?

My point in all this is that there are many things that affect an athlete's ability to perform. You can't just say, "that guy was doping, so he's a cheat. Everyone else passed the doping tests, so they're all honest, supreme athletes." It's not that simple. They're all taking complex coctails of nutrients and supplements. They all take vitamins, energy bars, protein shakes, creatine, testosterone, lactic-acid inhibitors, and who-knows-what else. If one of them accidentally takes just a few too many grams of one of his supplements, he/she could set off the doping alarm, and fail the test. That doesn't mean they deliberately cheated, unless you consider all the other athletes to be "cheating" too, when they follow their artificial diets.

NO ONE competes "naturally" anymore, in the sense that they just eat plain old food, sleep when they feel like it, and then compete. They all have carefully-monitored sleep cycles and diets. They're treated like machines, like high-performance engines. They're groomed to compete, sometimes even to the degree that they're supposed to peak on the day of their competition (that is, if you asked them to re-run their competition the next day, their time wouldn't be anywhere near the time they were able to turn in the day before).

So what's the answer? Ban all supplements? All protein powders? Energy bars? Low-fat foods? Forbid athletes from taking more than 8 hours of sleep a night? Should we try to make sure everyone is on equal footing? Or do we allow them to do everything they can to hone their bodies into high-performance machines that'll break records (and thus, attract ratings, sponsors, and ad revenue)?

Who's to say that a mild steroid is cheating, but a rigorous diet of protein shakes, Myoplex, ephedrine, Xenadrine, selenium, and whatever else is OK?

Re:Olympics

[Anonymous Coward]

You're confusing supplements with performance enhancing "drugs" or other controlled substances. Virtually everything that you can buy from a (legitimate) heath food shop, gym or online are "supplements" which are exactly that, they supplement real food and are basically nothing more than powdered/liquid food in a filtered/concentrated form. Either that or they are mild stimulants, such as caffeine or ephedra. There are strict guidelines about the permitted levels of stimulants in competition for most high level sports these days. However, nowhere will you ever see anything pertaining to levels of basic macronutriencs or essential vitamins and minerals.

Supplements don't do anything more than eating similar macronutrient proportions of real food would do, they are simply more convenient for atheletes on very controlled diets, particularly when it comes to consuming large amounts of protein without the saturated fats.

Virtually all quality protein powder's are extracted from whey (milk), and in some cases soy, they are not synthetic. Things like Creatine, L-Glutamine, Omega3 EFA etc are all present in regular foods such as red meat, wheat and flaxseeds respectively. Consuming them in concentrated form is a matter of convenience, and in no way constitutes "cheating". It's no different from juicing an orange or drinking reduced fat milk, you are removing undesired elements from an otherwise natural food source.

Using food supplement products, observing a controlled diet and using precisely monitored training techniques doesn't mean an athlete isn't competing "naturally", nore are they using performance enhancing substances. They are maximising their performance, but it is not being artificially enhanced by a controlled substance.

If any of these supplement products on the market actually exhibited true drug like effects, which are almost always accompanied with drug like side effects, they would be pulled off the shelves by the FDA and be required to be sold by prescription only, as has happened in the past with such products as Triax. Such results would also attact the attention of the respective sporting bodies and the substance would become listed as a banned substance as a result.

The true performance enhancing drugs, such as anabolic steroids, are those that are not generally present in regular food products, and produce an elevated anabolic (muscle buidling) or altered metabolic state that boosts the subjects performance and development. This can be due to increased levels of insulin, testosterone, human growth hormone or altered levels of IGF-I and MGF in an atheletes muscle tissue, or any number of other "benefits".

The point is that the performance enhancing "drugs" result in significant chemical and behavoural changes uninitiated by the body, and usually similarly significant side effects if taken for long enough or in large enough doses. More importantly they are generally controlled substances that must be sold through specific channels and not something that you will find on the shelves at your local supermarket. Where as supplements are mostly macronutrients, vitamins and minerals extracted from natural food in a more convenient form.

A previous poster indicated that the greater the "wealth", the more advanced the potential for doping is likely to be, which is exactly right. For example, a compound such as Mechano Growth Factor (MGF) is extremely difficult and expensive to manufacture, in fact very few people in the world know how to do it.

However the substance itself is the holy grail of performance enhancing drugs as it is the body's trigger to muscle tissue growth, is currently virtually impossible to detect because it's naturally occuring in the body, and localised to muscle tissue not the circulatory system. A country unscrupulous enough to invest the necessary research and development into the production of such a compound would have a competitive "doping" advantage over other countries using currently available substances and masking agents.

Woah

[Xpilot]

What's with all the links to half-naked men? Dammit, Slashdot has gone all metrosexual these days.

Relevence ???

[Anonymous Coward]

How about we forgot about this silly talley and watch the outcome as it unfolds...

But..

[rf0]

..it still doesn't tell us who to bet on in the Womens beach volleyball. Damn now I'm going to have to watch every match to find out

Rus

Evolution - or just better training

[grunt107]

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'.

Re:Evolution - or just better training

[Life2Short]

"learning how to trounce the US 'Dream Team,'" Not exactly hi-tech, that. My 7th grade basketball coach taught us about the zone defense way back in 1976. Man was that guy ahead of his time. Snicker. Here's another sure-fire strategy that will work against current American NBA stars: force them to shoot free-throws. And the networks wonder why NBA television ratings are sagging...

The current table

[mi]

Here is a more or less up to date table of the medals so far.

Ukraine is not doing too badly, thank you very much. Not for the third poorest country in Europe anyway.

The reason Phelps has to eat Thorpe's bubbles

[hayden]

It's all a cunning plan by Australia to breed the perfect swimmer. It's working well too. Nobody seems to have noticed the size 27 feet. We're going to try to get away with hands the size of hub caps at the next olympics.

oblig simpsons quote

[REBloomfield]

"You're forgetting what the Olympics are all about: giving out medals of beautiful gold, so-so silver and shameful bronze."

Re:Lies...

[Anonymous Coward]

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.

Possible Hypothesis Test

[tabdelgawad]

Mods, bear with me if this seems OT. A history buff friend of mine tells me that there are two main theories of historical development. One is the 'great man theory', where the course of history is determined by great (as in influential, not necessarily nice) individuals. The other is a view that history is inexorably driven by economic and social conditions that lead to inevitable outcomes (think Asimov's 'psychohistory'). Clearly, we're no where close to being able to test these theories empirically.

It strikes me that creating this model for olympic medal winners could provide an excellent 'lab expermient' to test this outstanding question in the philosophy of history. In many ways, international sports resemble international relations (rivalry, preparation, 'war', great (wo)men, winners, losers, etc.). If models can predict medal outcomes with acceptable accuracy, it could provide evidence against the 'great man theory' of history, and imply that a version of 'psychohistory' might be possible in the future!

Re:Australians are the best right now

[pommiekiwifruit]

Nothing like sharks, blue-ringed octopus, crocodiles and jellyfish to give aussies incentives to swim faster :-)

Re:Australians are the best right now

[freqres]

think part of the reason is, they invest allot in sports psychology, and given that 90% of Aussies live on or very near the sea, water is in their blood. They just like to swim!!!

I think the sharks make good training partners as well. For the swimmers that don't make the cut, not only is the water in their blood, their blood is in the water. Australia is starting to sound a lot like Soviet Russia.

Re:Vital step missing

[gowen]

Who's star atheletes are in trouble right now?

Well, last I checked, it was Tim Montgomery (THG, via BALCO), Marion Jones (ditto), Torri Edwards (Nikeathon), Kevin Toth, John McEwen, Melissa Price, Regina Edwards, Kelli White. Throw in a previous positive tests from Carl Lewis, that was swept under the carpet. Need I go on? I could.

Fortunately, with USADA, this looks like it might change.

See this or this for examples.

PS : Hockey is not governed by US Athletics, which is, unsurprisingly, concened with Athletics.

Re:They neglect the important question

[adolfojp]

Perhaps I can answer your question.

Puerto Rico is not part of the USA, it belongs to the USA. It was given to the USA by Spain in 1898 afted its defeat in the Spanish American War.

Although its constitution names it a Comonwealth, it is actually a colony, a territory with some form of limited local government. Puerto Ricans are US citizens, and use the Dolar as a currency. We must abide by the American governmet, yet we cannot vote for the President or have representation in the Senate or in the Congress.

So there you have it, Puerto Rico is not part of the USA, it is an american territory.

On a related issue. About the future status of the island. 47% of the voters want statehood, 47% want to preserve the status quo and the remaining 6% want its independence. As you can infer from these numbers, the matters of status are actively debated on a daily basis, yet, no change seems posible in the near future.


Cheers,

Adolfo

Re:here's another paper

[mgs1000]

Last year, this group predicted the US's medal count and gold medal count exactly on.

Zero?

We're talking about last year's Olympics, right?

Re:Vital step missing

[strictfoo]

And the same thing could be done for almost any country.
Many of those are accusations, and while some are probably true, we can do the same thing for almost any country. Let's start a list, shall we?

England
England again (the world champ 100m sprinter... no!)
Germany
Ireland
Russia
Turkey!

How multicultural! Those took me about 5 minutes to find.

Have a good day

Re:Ian Thorpe...

[pubjames]

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?

About Quality, not Quantity

[Anonymous Coward]

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.

what the Fox article doesnt say

[WormholeFiend]

is that the guy in a blue tutu jumped in the pool BEFORE the medal-favourites flopped...

I bolded the interesting paragraphs.

http://www.cbc.ca/story/olympics/national/2004/0 8/ 17/Sports/athens-security040817.html?print

Olympic organizers boost security after Canadian fan leaps into pool
Last Updated Tue, 17 Aug 2004 09:16:11 EDT
CBC SPORTS ONLINE - Olympics organizers have increased security at all sports venues after an unidentified Canadian spectator plunged into a swimming pool during a diving competition.

The man, bare-chested and sporting a blue tutu, scampered onto the pool deck and climbed to an adjoining diving board during the men's synchronized three-metre springboard event on Monday.

He jumped into the pool after about a minute atop his perch and was immediately apprehended by security officials at the Olympic Aquatic Centre.

The man, who was not identified by police, was arrested and questioned by a prosecutor.

Although the spectator appeared to have harmless intentions, Olympic officials took the breach seriously.

Organizers have spent an unprecedented amount on Olympic security and the incident exposed a hole in the supposed impenetrable safety ring at venues.

"We are going to put security guys around the field of play," Marton Simitsek, an Athens 2004 executive, told the Associated Press on Tuesday.

Olympic organizers said the man was trying to send a love message to his wife by getting on TV.

However, the message painted on his chest appeared to be the website address for an online gaming website.

The fan disruption turned the competition on its head.

The top-ranked Chinese duo Kenan Wang and Bo Peng appeared headed toward certain victory before the intrusion. However, after the incident, one of the Chinese divers landed on his back on his final dive and the team received zeros across the board.

Russian Dmitry Sautin then knocked himself on the board and American brothers Justin and Tony Dumais worked themselves out of a medal position with a missed landing.

Unheralded Greeks Nikolaos Siranidis and Thomas Bimis won the gold. It was the host country's first gold of the Games.

with files from The Associated Press

Re:Admit it, Australians own the pool per populati

[Apiakun]

The people of Atlantis beg to differ!

200 free

[siskbc]

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.

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.

pet peeve of mine

[Knights who say 'INT]

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.