Forecasting Australia's Olympic performance: Australia to suffer post host letdown in Athens

At the Sydney Olympics, 6.3% of the medals handed out were won by Australia - 16 Gold, 25 silver and 17 Bronze medals. But Australians should be warned not to expect a repeat performance in Athens. This paper looks at how nations generally perform in the Olympics after that in which they have acted as host nation. Australia’s last games figures were inflated by the home ground advantage, and analysis shows countries invariably perform worse in their ‘post host’ Olympics. By analysing how countries perform following their host Olympics, we can estimate the proportion of medals Australia will win in Athens. We also analyse Australia’s past medal tallies at all Olympics to predict their Athens tally by an alternative method. However Australia has a history of winning a lower than expected proportion of gold medals, and we should expect no more than 25% of the medals won will be gold. I estimate Australia will win 4.2% of available medals. Aided by the ever increasing number of medals awarded, this will be about 40 medals, made up of 10 gold 14 silver and 16 bronze.