Olympic Offical: USA to Top Medal Count in Beijing

Posted January 18, 2008 at 05:52 PM by Jimmie R. Markham

Section: Beijing 2008

Luciano Barra, an Italian Olympic official and a leading Olympic medal prognosticator, is predicting that Team USA will take home more hardware from Beijing than any other country. Here are his predictions for the top medal getters:

USA Overall: 98, Gold: 47 China Overall: 89, Gold: 38 Russia Overall: 88, Gold: 32

His predictions have been revised since August, when he predicted that China would lead the gold medal count with 45, followed by USA with 41, then Russia with 34.

According to the article:

“Both China and the United States are downplaying their chances in the Aug 8-24 Olympics. The home-country always get a boost from hosting the Games, but this time Chinese officials are saying they will be disadvantaged by the pressure. The Americans say they are being outspent by the Chinese, who will benefit from being at home.”

Russia is also downplaying their chances. Apparently they are hoping for a gold-medal count of 30, according to an article on the ROSBusinessConsulting.com website.

For additional information about all-time Olympic medal counts, by country: Wikipedia