The medals war --Olympics in Beijing

Discussions about China’s chances to become the first Olympic power and to overcome the US at the next Olympics in Beijing started at the end of the former edition in Athens, 2004. In Athens China reached its top result, both for gold medals (it was second with 32 golds) and for total medals (third with 63). China’s first Olympic appearance was at Los Angeles 1984, and in twenty years it doubled the number of won medals (recall that in Los Angeles the USSR and all the East-European countries did not compete). At the end of the Athens Olympics many observers predicted that in Beijing China will finally outdo the US in the medal struggle. Nevertheless, China’s sport officials maintained a low profile and claimed that the country did not reach yet the top of its potential. In Athens the chief de mission of the Chinese delegation Yuan Weimin had declared “Though China is in second place in the gold medal standings, we are not a sports superpower […] There is still a considerable gap between us and the United States and Russia […] We are still comparatively weak in track and field and swimming, two premier sports at the Olympic Games”. Last year I quoted the result of a research by the British Olympic Committee according to which, if the Games had taken place in 2006, China would have been ahead of the US in the gold medal count. Now the society PriceWaterhouseCoopers published a study according to which China could win 88 medals, the US 87 and Russia 79. The results for the five top nations would be the following (the study only considers the number of total medals):

	Beijing 2008	Athens 2004	difference
1. China	88	63	+25
2. US	87	103	-16
3. Russia	79	92	-13
4. Germany	43	48	-5

The diagram illustrates the total number of medals won by the first four Olympic powers from 1984 (the year of China’s Olympic debut) to 2008, if the predictions of the study are correct, and shows in particular China’s amazing progression.

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