Goldman Sachs predicts 8 medals for India at Rio!

Goldman Sachs has been reasonably successful in its sports predictions of late, if not in their financial punts. They did end up predicting Brazil as winners of the 2014 Football World Cup and France for the Euros, but have been directionally right more often than less. However, their Olympic predictions were spot-on the last time as they “were more accurate than we could ever have imagined, with the perfect prediction for the total medals (65) for the UK, and picking 10 out of the top 11 countries in the gold medal tables and all the top 11 in the total medal tables correctly being the standout highlights.”

In their prediction for the Rio Olympics, they have pegged India to improve on its Olympics medals tally.

If you are still searching for India, we suggest you look from bottom up – India is right at the bottom of the list.

As expected, the US and China dominate the charts, but it's no longer a one-horse race. Additionally, the elimination of the Russian track & field team after their ignominious doping scandal has led to some significant readjustment of the predictions as the medals have been redistributed.

According to Goldman Sachs, the model “features the quality of growth environments, population, previous success, and ‘host effects’” but also “acknowledges the role of beginners’ luck or randomness here, typical in small samples.”

The model has also predicted the dominance of countries by disciplines. As some witty one-liners in the report go, “Beware of Italian Fencers, Korean Archers, and Brazilian Volleyballers” and “the UK does, in fact, dominate sports that involve sitting down.” (It is dominant in rowing, cycling, sailing and second most dominant in equestrianism behind Germany.)

One hopes that the predictions come true and our athletes prove them wrong by surpassing the numbers for a first-time into the double digits.