PREDICTING BEIJING RESULTS:
can you foretell the finish?
a year before the Beijing olympic Games, american economist daniel Johnson
predicted the overall medal outcome of the Games. He had done this for 2004 coming
out with 95 per cent accuracy. Johnson did not look at prior country success, athlete
results or anything to do with athlete information. Johnson used only economics.
© Detlev Seyb
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Employing an economic formula, Johnson, a
professor at Colorado College, USA, based his
prediction solely on country economic indicators like per-capita income, population,
climate, political structure and home-nation
advantage. The formula shows that athletes
from wealthy nations close to the Olympic
host country are most likely to do well.
If Olympic results can be picked from factors
beyond past results and athletes’ known
abilities, how easy was it to predict who
would win the rowing medals at Beijing’s
Shunyi Olympic Rowing venue on 16 and 17
of August 2008?
FISA’s competitive commission member and
international rowing coach Gianni Postiglione
noted that some people were talking about
big surprises in the results. But how surprising
were they?
Postiglione analysed the 2008 Olympic results,
not by economic factors, but by comparing
Beijing with the 2004 Olympic Games and
the 2007 World Rowing Championship
results. Looking solely at countries and not at
athletes or their circumstances, Postiglione
found that results in Beijing were in fact
relatively predictable.
In the 14 Olympic events, there were no
events that had a completely different top
three when compared to Athens and Munich.
The women’s single, women’s double,
women’s quad and women’s eight showed
a remarkable consistency when compared
to both 2004 and 2007 results. Similarly the
women’s pair showed predictability with two
of the same countries making it to the top
three in 2004, 2007 and in Beijing.
Using 2007 results, the men’s single, and
lightweight men’s double had exactly the
same countries in the top three both years.
The men’s pair, men’s quad and men’s eight
followed a pattern of having two of the
same boats in 2007 but the result was less
predictable when compared to 2004.
At the less predictable end of the scale, the
lightweight women’s double only had one
boat the same each time when comparing
2004 and 2007 with Beijing. This leaves three
events: the men’s double, men’s four and
lightweight men’s four, which can be put into
the less predictable file.
The men’s double came out as the most
surprising Olympic result for many observers,
with medals going to Australia, Estonia and
Great Britain. This result, says Postiglione,
is really the only race that could not be
predicted from past results. None of the
Beijing medallists had featured at Athens and
only one medalled in 2007. Australia’s >>
The Polish lightweight men’s
four express their joy at
winning silver at the 2008
Beijing Games. Apart from
Pawel Randa (far left), who
won bronze in the lightweight
men’s double at the 2005 World
Rowing Championships, none
of them had ever medalled at
World Championship level in an
Olympic boat class before the
Beijing Games.
