Olympic Medal Prognosticator Delivers Final Picks

(ATR) It’s the end of an era in Olympic medal prognostication as Luciana Barra submits his final projections ahead of the 2012 London Games.

After 18 years, the former director of sport for the Italian National Olympic Committee (CONI) has decided to stop doing the research that many NOCs once relied on and are now compiling themselves.

"The Italian Olympic Committee continued and improved the projections that now are available regularly on their website," Barra tells Around the Rings.

In his parting remarks to the stakeholders who have received his projections, Barra said, "Let us leave the statistics to real results."

But first, he agreed to analyze for ATR his latest work, based primarily on results from the 2011 world championships in each Olympic sport. Besides the raw numbers, Barra offered insights gleaned from years of experience.

China holds the top spot with 103 total medals (43 gold, 31 silver and 29 bronze). The United States is second with 82 medals (35/19/28) and Russia ranks third with 76 (30/22/24).

For comparison, China narrowly lost out to the U.S. in overall medals (100 to 110) at the Beijing Olympics but easily topped Team USA (51 to 36) when ordering by IOC convention of gold medals won.

"At the end of the day most of the people are interested in which will be the first country," Barra tells ATR. "You saw that China is still very strong, but personally I believe that the United States will do better because for the American athlete, the Olympics are not the World Championships. I think the Americans will do better than they have done in the past year."

Combine that with a belief that China may not be able to sustain its post-Beijing success, and "I think the U.S. has a chance to go back on top," Barra says. "It will be a very interesting battle."

Fighting for Fourth

After the top three countries, a big drop-off follows. The competition for fourth place could be fierce, Barra says.

Australia currently ranks fourth with 15 gold medals among its total of 34. Great Britain (58) and Germany (54) are projected to win more medals overall, but not as many of the golds that determine placement in the Olympic medal chart.

France, Japan and Italy are also in the hunt.

Great Britain is pegged for 12 gold and 30 silver medals, but Barra believes the home field advantage could turn some of those silvers into gold medals in London.

"These are numbers and the Olympics are about human stories, more than by the number, no?" he says.

A total of 84 countries made the list based on medal success in the major events of 2011. Argentina, Botswana, Chile, Grenada and Singapore are tied for 44th place with a sole gold. Saudi Arabia, Estonia, Malaysia, Portugal, Montenegro, Sudan and Tunisia garnered a lone silver and 12 countries make the list with one bronze medal.

Sport-Specific Breakdowns

Barra also analyzed the medal hauls of the top 10 countries according to sport. China won 25 medals in aquatics, mostly diving, and also won double-digit medals in gymnastics (16) and weightlifting (13).

He says China's specialization could work against the country.

"If you want to win more medals, you need to win in more sports," he says. "That is the problem for China. They have three sports, 50 medals. If you are not able to keep that strength, then you won't be successful."

China and the U.S. each won medals in 15 sports in Barra's projections.

The bulk of the U.S. medals are expected to come in aquatics (26) and athletics (25). Germany is projected to win medals in the largest number of sports (18) while Australia (eight) and New Zealand (seven) showed success in the fewest sports among the top 10.

How It All Began

When Barra was appointed sport director for CONI in 1993, he knew that the Soviet Union and East Germany once had special departments within their sporting institutes that conducted this type of research.

Italy had lagged in the medal tally, winning only 14 in Seoul and 19 in Barcelona, so Barra was tasked with improving that total.

"I needed more information about our results," he says.

Monitoring the results from major competitions proved to be an important tool. It was a concrete way to measure trends and follow the investments in various sports programs. The analysis paid off. In concert with other CONI initiatives, the country nearly doubled its medals in Atlanta with 35 – putting Italy in the top six – then won 34 medals in Sydney and 32 in Athens.

"I was very happy to see that in my five Olympic Games, between Summer and Winter, we doubled the number of medals," Barra says. "We had 55 medals in the five Olympics before, and in my period we had 111. It's also motivation that you have to give to the people to win medals."

He kept track of the top eight, not just the top three in each event, because "these are the ones who will win the medals in the future," he says.

Achieving Success

Barra praises the Canadians for their Own the Podium program, which resulted in the host country winning the medal count in Vancouver in 2010. Canada won 26 medals overall, including 14 gold. Although Canada had hosted previous Olympics in Montreal (1976) and Calgary (1988), it had never before won any gold medals in an Olympics on home soil.

"You can read through the numbers, but I always prefer the human aspect," Barra says. "You see it behind the projects."

Barra says New Zealand asked him for some advice several years ago and has since seen drastic improvement. Kiwi athletes won four medals in Sydney, five in Athens and nine in Beijing. Based on 2011 results, New Zealand is projected to win 21 medals in London, the bulk (eight) coming from rowing, which would put the country 10th in the medal count.

Keeping Track

When Barra began his research, he had to start from scratch. It took him five or six hours a week to track down results, which often had to be obtained directly from the international federation. For his more recent projections, it took no more than two hours a week to find results online.

Barra left CONI in 2004 –although he was affiliated with the organization through the Torino Olympics – and has since worked as a consultant with the Chicago 2016 and PyeongChang 2018 bid committees.

He is onboard with Rome 2020 as advisor to the president and is also busy with personal projects, including his wine in Tuscany.

"At the beginning everybody was very curious, very interested (in the projections)," Barra says. "Recently I found out that people sometimes were upset. I just sum up the results of the world championships. "

Written by Karen Rosen.

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