The US and China will top the medal table on the upcoming Rio Olympics on August 21, Sunday, according to predictions.
In the year, 2012, 2008 and 2004, the US, China and Russia can be relied on to top the list, in terms of the overall medals won.
But this year, Russia will most likely fail to top the medal table since many of its competitors were disqualified. The question now would be which country will probably take the third place?
According to one theory, the countries that do best in Olympics are either big or wealthy or both. Having a big population means that they have many athletes to choose from while being wealthy means they can afford training facilities and many more.
But Dr. Julia Bredtmann, an economist at the Leibniz Institute for Economic Research in Essen, has made a prediction medal table based on countries population and wealth, that doesn't look substantial.
In the table, when you consider US as having more than 100 medals in 2012 and India only six, it's clear that it would be inaccurate to gamble too much money on this outcome.
The same when Saudi Arabia will win 13 medals at Rio, because of its high GDP and large population, even though it had not gained a single medal up until 2012 games.
"It's a good starting point but by using other factors we can at least explain a little bit more and improve the predictions," says Bredtmann.
Another important factor, she added, is "sports culture," and since it cannot be easily taken in data, Bredtmann based instead at the number of medals won in the previous Olympic Games.
"What can be shown is that there is a large persistence in Olympic success," she says. "There are some countries that always win medals and some countries that will never win a medal."
Bredtmann and her colleagues see Russia falling two places in the table, and the UK moving up into third place.
