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ROLL up your copy of New Scientist, tuck it under your arm and get
down to the bookie鈥檚 now. Here鈥檚 the tip: Germany will top the medals table in
this year鈥檚 Winter Olympics with 31 medals, 11 of them gold. Russia will be
runners-up with 21 medals, 10 of them gold. Close behind will be the US and
Norway.

Of course, we鈥檙e not going to reimburse any money you lose, and neither will
the Harvard economists who made these predictions. But Daniel Johnson and Ayfer
Ali are pretty confident about their forecast鈥攖hey were around 96 per cent
accurate in their predictions for the Sydney Olympics medal table.

Their accuracy is uncanny, considering they have never taken any athlete鈥檚
sporting prowess into account. Johnson and Ali base their predictions on little
more than a country鈥檚 GDP, political situation, and its population, latitude and
climate. They created their predictions by investigating how these factors were
related to past Olympic achievements. The aim was to analyse how economic and
political conditions can affect a nation鈥檚 sporting achievements.

As you might expect, they found that the probability of success is closely
related to a nation鈥檚 wealth. But there were also surprises in the data.
Athletes from communist and single-party regimes excel at winning medals,
Johnson says. Contrary to popular belief, these nations don鈥檛 send
disproportionately many athletes, but they consistently outperform other nations
with the same economic and geographic attributes. The difference is, on average,
18 summer medals and 10 winter medals. Another surprise is the role of
temperature. Nations with a colder climate always outperform more sun-soaked
ones鈥攅ven in the summer games.

Johnson and Ali鈥檚 paper, which they have submitted to Economica,
concludes with a predicted medals table. They prefer to see these predictions
not as a gambler鈥檚 guide to form, but rather as a measure of how well we should
expect nations to perform given their political, economic and climatic
situation. Rising above these expectations reveals the prowess and dedication of
the team members. 鈥淲hen a nation consistently outperforms expectations based on
political and economic factors, it shows there鈥檚 something special about the
sporting community in that nation,鈥� Johnson says.

Philip Pope of the British Olympic Association says the BOA prefers not to
make medal predictions for fear of putting undue pressure on its athletes.
New Scientist has no such qualms, however, so here鈥檚 our advice to the
Great Britain team: based on economic and political factors, you can expect to
win one gold and three other medals, finishing 15th. Anything better, and you鈥檒l
be national heroes. Anything worse, and you could spark a revolution.