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.
Since the last VMT update at the beginning of January, important events have taken place in tennis, handball, equestrian-jumping, golf, judo, sailing and badminton. The main changes in the VMT though are due to an improvement to the model which we have applied so that personal bests are accounted for in athletics and swimming events. The main beneficiary from this adjustment is Australia, whose four extra medals to increase from a projected 42 to 46, are a direct consequence of this change as is the reduction of gold medals for Germany and Great Britain. Australia have jumped two places from sixth to fourth in the medal forecast for Rio.
Host nation Brazil is the other country to have improved by more than two medals in January. Brazil is now expected to win 22 medals in Rio, increasing last month’s total by three because of its participants’ performances in judo, sailing and tennis.
The United States remain at the top of the VMT with 94 medals, increasing by two from last month. China has dropped two medals to 82 and Russia are also down two to 68. Australia is currently fourth and Great Britain fifth. The Australians have overtaken Great Britain after the British lost a projected gold medal – Jessica Ennis-Hill was overtaken by Canada’s Brianne Theisen Eaton because of the adjustment made to athletics events. Both went past Germany and the fight for fourth position in Rio looks like being a tight one with a number of countries in with a chance. The other move within the top-10 in the last month is France and Korea swapping positions in eighth and ninth.
For the full medal table, go to our VMT website. You can also subscribe to our newsletter here: http://products.infostradasports.com/documentation/vmt/
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