2010 Winter Olympics Medals Tally Predictions

As a follow up to an earlier post, Winter Olympics: Overall Medals Betting, I thought you may be interested in the predictions of economist Daniel Johnson. Johnson is well known for his accurate medals forecasts. Below are his recent performances:

Accuracy of predictions for total medals won by a country:

2008 Beijing Summer Games: 93%
2006 Torino Winter Games: 93%
2004 Athens Summer Games: 94%
2002 Salt Lake City Winter Games: 94%
2000 Sydney Summer Games: 95%

Accuracy of predictions for gold medals won by a country:

2008 Beijing Summer Games: 92%
2006 Torino Winter Games: 89%
2004 Athens Summer Games: 86%
2002 Salt Lake City Winter Games: 85%
2000 Sydney Summer Games: 84%

Contrary to what you may expect, Daniel Johnson doesn’t analyze individual athletes or events. Instead, he bases his forecasts on a handful of economic variables, including per-capita income, population, climate and the location of the games.

Below are Johnson’s 2010 predictions, along with the respective odds for each country having the highest total/gold medal tally.

 
Wow! These predictions are in huge conflict with those of punters and bookmakers. For the overall medal tally Johnson has Germany ranked 7th while the sports betting community predicts Germany to top the standings. For the gold medal tally Johnson’s top pick of Russia is currently available at 19.5-to-1 odds.

Whose predictions would you rely on? Daniel Johnson has a great track record, but punters will have taken into account a lot more information. I would be delighted for Canada if Johnson’s overall medal tally prediction is correct.

Notes

• The above information is sourced from Forbes.com.
• The odds data were sourced from Betfair at 8:35pm on February 12th, AEDT.