Medal Mayhem

Tracking the medal count for the Paris 2024 Olympics

At Medal Mayhem, I project the medal winners for the Games of the XXXIII Olympiad in Paris 2024 and try to figure out who will win the medals race – with my tongue firmly planted in my cheek.

Now that the Olympics are over, I am going to have a look and see the few things I got right and the many things I got wrong. Crossed-out numbers are what I predicted; numbers in bold are the actual totals. An exclamation point (!) is given for any prediction I got right on the nose.

What’s the thing about the Olympics you care about most? Is it the camaraderie, the togetherness, the sob stories? No, the first and last thing you look at is the medal race. You want to see where your country ranks in the medal count. (Yes, I’m being a bit facetious, but work with me here.)

And depending on where you live, that medal count may be ordered differently. Here where I live in the United States, the countries are ranked by total medals, because the USA is so good at finishing second and third. In other countries, they rank by gold medals, which is the correct way to do the rankings. And in China, they “steal” medals from Taiwan (I refuse to use “Chinese Taipei”) and Hong Kong and claim them as their own. So, this can be very confusing.

The correct way to rank countries, as I said before, is by gold medals. Do you rank NFL teams based on how many conference championship games they reach, or do you count MJ and LeBron’s number of conference final appearances? No, you rank them on championships. If countries are tied on golds, then you go to silvers. Bronze medals only matter if countries are tied in gold and silver medals. It’s all about the golds.

So, I’m here to take my stab at tracking the medal race for the upcoming Games of the XXXIII Olympiad in Paris 2024. I’m going to show projected medals, based mainly on world rankings, and try to see if it will be USA or China on top of the medal list in France next summer.

Something to understand in these projections is that I’m here to project, not to predict. Yes, I am predicting medal winners for every event, but the main purpose of this exercise is to figure out a ballpark of how many gold medals the top nations will earn (particularly the United States and China). That way, I have some understanding on whether the USA is over-performing or under-performing in the medal count. So, if we get through, say, the table tennis proceedings, and China doesn’t have as many golds as I’ve projected, then they’re in trouble in the medal race. Then we can find out at the end of the Games who achieved what they were supposed to, who did more than they may have thought they would, and who didn’t live up to expectations. And maybe, along the way, I’ll get one or two of these picks right.

Medal projections:

Current medal table, based off projections, (top 10):

Green if country did better than I predicted

Red if country did worse than I predicted

CountryGoldSilverBronzeTotal
United States66 4037 4443 42146 126
China46 4023 2725 2494 91
France26 1619 2619 2264!
Netherlands17 1511 710 1238 34
Australia15 1825 1912 1652 53
Japan9 2014 1217 1340 45
Italy8 1214 1323 1545 40
Germany8 122 139 819 33
Great Britain7 1427 2223 2957 65
New Zealand6 105 75 316 20

*AIN = Individual Neutral Athletes, i.e., athletes from Russia and Belarus

2024 thoughts:

Green = good prediction

Red = bad prediction

  • I gave too many medals to the United States.
  • That being said, the USA is going to easily win the gold medal race over China, even should they slip up badly in a couple of sports.
  • Relying on world rankings has made my picks very top-heavy.
  • And that being said, the goal is to get a general feel as to how the medals race will go, not to get every pick right.
  • France is going to clean up in Paris, even if they don’t clean up the Seine.
  • China is really hurt by the reduced weightlifting classes.
  • Uzbekistan is really good in some niche sports, and that may get them pretty high up the gold medal count.
  • I haven’t been generous enough to Great Britain in the gold medal race.
  • The Netherlands probably won’t finish as high as I have them, but due to the fact that they are the favorites in some of the sports I know next to nothing about, I was a bit too generous to them with gold medals.
  • Australia will probably do much better in the pool than I say.
  • Ukraine is going to have some feel-good stories on the top of the podium, and I’m here for that.
  • Jamaica is going to have a much better track meet than I have predicted.
  • I have 91 different nations winning medals, and 61 different countries winning at least one gold. (Actual numbers: 92 and 64)
  • Bring on Paris!

2025 thoughts:

  • I wasn’t off as badly as I initially thought.
  • While I overestimated the number of gold medals by the USA, I also did so for China as well. And I actually underestimated the number of silver medals by the USA (the category that ended up proving the difference in the final medal count standings).
  • Great Britain and Germany should not be underestimated.
  • Japan is now one of the preeminent powerhouses in Olympic sports and should be treated as such. They may not be on China-USA level yet, but to back up Tokyo 2020 with a 20-gold medal count is just outstanding. Could a second-place finish be possible in LA?
  • France didn’t get as big a bump in gold medals as I expected, but I nailed their total medal haul.
  • South Korea is the nation I underestimated the most, as they won 13 gold medals and finished 8th in the standings (I didn’t have them in my top 10).
  • This was a fun exercise that I plan on doing again in the future.
  • Bring on Milan!