New Zealand has been tipped to capture 14 medals, including four gold, when the Paris Olympics begin this week.
The predictions comes from Nielsen's Gracenote Sports, which provides statistical analysis of major sporting events around the world, including Olympic sports.
Based on results leading up to the Games, its forecast for Paris has the Kiwis ranked 18th on the projected medal table, equal with Turkey, which edges ahead with more silver.
At Tokyo 2020, New Zealand finished with 20 medals — seven gold, six silver and seven bronze — to finish 13th. This was our best medal haul, and second only to Los Angeles 1984 for gold (eight) and overall placing (eighth).
NZ is again expected to feature prominently in rowing, canoeing, rugby sevens and track cycling.
The United States is favoured to win the most medals, projected for 112 medals overall — 39 gold, 32 silver and 41 bronze — with China their closest rival on 34 gold, 27 silver and 25 bronze.
No surprise
The United States and China finished 1-2 in both categories in 2021 in the pandemic-delayed Tokyo Olympics, with the Chinese the last to topple the Americans from the top spot, winning 48 gold to 36 at Beijing 2008.
The International Olympic Committee does not compile official medal rankings. Gracenote has calculated its standings on overall medals won, although others focus the rankings on gold totals.
The forecast for the Americans on top is no surprise. This would be the eighth consecutive time the United States has won the most overall medals at the Summer Games. The Unified Team, made up of athletes from the former Soviet Union, topped the overall count at Barcelona 1992.
After the United States and China, the next in line with overall totals and gold totals are Britain (63-17), host France (60-27), Australia (54-15), Japan (47-13), Italy (46-11), Germany (35-11), Netherlands (34-16) and South Korea (26-9).
Countries always get a medal bump being the host nation and France is expected to almost triple the number of gold medals it won in Tokyo. Host nations spend more heavily for a home Olympics and the home crowds also help with athletes competing in familiar surroundings.
Conversely, Japan won a record 58 overall medals three years ago in Tokyo and 27 gold, but is sure to slip this time.
The unknown factor is the presence of Russian and — to a lesser extent — Belarusian athletes. They have been absent from most international competitions over the last two years because of the war in Ukraine.
By order of the IOC, any medals those athletes win are not to be included in any medal table.
More than 300 Russian athletes competed three years ago in Tokyo. This time, the total may be just a dozen or so.
Additional reporting by 1News
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