Gracenote’s Data Analytics Predicts Winners and Losers of 2016 Rio Olympics

USA, China and Russia Top Medal Counts,

Spain, Argentina, Italy and Ukraine Show Steady Declines

EMERYVILLE, Calif., April 26, 2016 – Gracenote®, the world’s leading provider of entertainment data and subsidiary of Tribune Media Company (NYSE: TRCO), is using its sports data expertise to predict which countries and athletes will step up at the 2016 Summer Olympic Games if the games were held today.

Infostrada Sports twitter accounts renamed to Gracenote

As Infostrada Sports rebrands to Gracenote Sports, we want to inform you that we’re changing our Twitter handles over to Gracenote. If you’re already following one or more of our accounts, know that this will be a seamless transition. You won’t have to do a thing to continue to get the same outstanding sports scores, stats, facts & figures and insights.

Johan Cruyff (68) – one of all-time greats passes away

FOOTBALL – Johan Cruyff, one of the greatest footballers and visionaries of the beautiful game has passed away at the age of 68. From Ajax to Barcelona he revolutionised the game, always focussing on attacking football.

You can find his career overview here

Itoje England’s youngest second row for 20 years

RUGBY – Maro Itoje has been named in England’s starting XV to face Ireland in the third round of the Six Nations Championship at Twickenham on Saturday. Itoje will be the youngest second row to start for England in the competition since Garath Archer 20 years ago, and only the eighth forward in the professional era to debut for England before his 22^nd birthday.

ANALYSE THIS: PSG more likely to progress than historic results suggest

FOOTBALL – The Champions League first legs have all been played and the favourites to progress generally look in good shape to do so. There are two common ways to assess what the likelihood of going through actually is – the first uses historical results and calculates the frequency with which teams recording a particular result went through. The second uses a statistical model based on team ratings to assess the chances of progress. The two methods give broadly the same chance for each of the four ties won by the away team but if a match is drawn or results in a narrow home win, the chances from the two methods begin to diverge.

ANALYSE THIS: Euro Club Index makes unfamiliar opponents familar

FOOTBALL – The reaction to Manchester United’s defeat by FC Midtjylland has been one of shock with the English club being derided as “dismal” in the media and the display described as “unacceptable” by one of United’s own players, Michael Carrick. Five days earlier, United lost by a similar scoreline to Sunderland without the same level of criticism from either outside or within. According to the Euro Club Index, Danish champions FC Midtjylland are actually at about the same level of quality as the Black Cats from England’s North East. Prior to Thursday night’s fixture, Midtjylland were ranked 136^th by this pan-European ranking with Sunderland 132^nd . The difference in opinion therefore lies in people’s perspective with the quality of smaller clubs like Midtjylland being underestimated by media and fans alike because of their lack of knowledge of the team or the league in which they play.

ANALYSE THIS: Australia overtakes Great Britain in Virtual Medal Table

GENERAL – Australia has moved into fourth position in the Infostrada Sports’ Virtual Medal Table (VMT) after the inclusion of athletics and swimming personal bests since May 2015 took projected golds away from Germany and Great Britain and added four medals to Australia’s forecast total.

ANALYSE THIS: Fiji lead rugby sevens ranking in Olympic year

RUGBY SEVENS – World Rugby’s Sevens Series returns this weekend with 16 teams participating in this year’s Wellington tournament in New Zealand. At Infostrada Sports, we have developed a world ranking for every Olympic sport with rugby sevens no exception before the sport’s inaugural Olympic Games appearance later this year. Fiji currently have a clear lead at the top of our standings while New Zealand have dropped to seventh position since they lost the number one spot to Fiji just under a year ago. The All Blacks Sevens last tournament victory was at the 2015 Wellington Sevens.

ANALYSE THIS: Oldest Australian Open quarter-final line-up since 1977

TENNIS – Six of this year’s quarter-finalists in the Australian Open men’s singles are over 28-years-old for the first time in the competition’s history. The average age of the eight quarter-finalists is the oldest since 43-year-old Ken Rosewall reached this stage in 1977.

ANALYSE THIS: Settled team one of the keys to Leicester’s success

FOOTBALL – Thirty-five years ago Aston Villa famously, and surprisingly, won the league title with just 14 players. Three years earlier, Nottingham Forest won the league immediately after promotion using just 16 players. Arsenal’s 1989 title win, their first for 18 years, was achieved with just 17 starters. This season, Leicester City have been the great surprises of the Premier League and have also followed a similar pattern in their selections. In the first 22 matches of the season, Leicester manager Claudio Ranieri has picked just 17 players in his starting line-ups and the club could still equal the Premier League era record for fewest starting players in a season.