'Someone will die': Olympic legend sounds harsh warning if Enhanced Games go ahead
Olympic swimming legend and Australian Sports Commission boss Kieren Perkins has warned that "someone will die" if a multi-sport event that allows athletes to…
A number cruncher is predicting a return to the glory days for Australia at the Rio Olympics, tipping a fourth-place finish on the overall medal tally.
Simon Gleave has been working the Olympic numbers for four years, putting them through a data-processing program as the head of analysis for US-based Gracenote, a sports and entertainment data provider.
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Gleave is picking the United States to top the table with 42 gold and 102 medals overall, with China second with 31 gold and 78 overall – the same order as London four years ago.
He has predicted Russia to finish third with 22, followed by Australia with 18, one ahead of Great Britain.
That would be a massive improvement on Australia’s 10th-place finish in London and match the placing in Athens in 2004 and Sydney in 2000, when the host country also finished fourth.
It’s one behind Australia’s best-ever finish of third, back at the 1956 Games in Melbourne.
Australian Olympic officials are more circumspect, eyeing a fifth-place finish.
Gleave listed a number of break-out athletes including American swimmer Michael Phelps, who would collect five more gold medals and a bronze, bringing his overall total to 28 with a career gold-medal haul of 23.
“In terms of medal-count and order, it’s going to be close to what we have,” said Gleave, who in 2012 – using a less sophisticated program – predicted within four medals the results of 16 of the top 20 teams.
Gleave will issue updates again in June, July and August, just days before the August 5 opening.
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