While I enjoy watching winter sports when they’re on TV, I’m not familiar with the individual competitors. For this reason I probably won’t bet on individual events during the upcoming Olympics. One bet I probably will participate in, however, is the country with the most medals. Some bookmakers offer bets on the most gold medals, while others offer bets on the highest overall medal tally. You can also find bets on the number of Australian and British medals. See my previous post for a selection of who is currently offering what for Winter Olympics betting.
For anyone else who is interested in medal tally betting, I’ve compiled below some recent medals tallies data. The data have been sourced from Wikipedia.
Gold Medals
The table below lists the gold medals tallies for selected countries over the past four Winter Olympics. I haven’t gone back further because of various country changes, namely USSR, Czechoslovakia and East/West Germany. The ‘Growth Ratio’ column represents the average of the tallies in 2006 and 2002 divided by the average of the tallies in 1998 and 1994. A figure greater than one indicates improvement.
| Nation | 2006 | 2002 | 1998 | 1994 | Average | Growth Ratio | ||||||
| Germany | 11 | 12 | 12 | 9 | 11.00 | 1.10 | ||||||
| Norway | 2 | 13 | 10 | 10 | 8.75 | 0.75 | ||||||
| Russia | 8 | 5 | 9 | 11 | 8.25 | 0.65 | ||||||
| United States | 9 | 10 | 6 | 6 | 7.75 | 1.58 | ||||||
| Canada | 7 | 7 | 6 | 3 | 5.75 | 1.56 | ||||||
| Italy | 5 | 4 | 2 | 7 | 4.50 | 1.00 | ||||||
| Austria | 9 | 3 | 3 | 2 | 4.25 | 2.40 | ||||||
| South Korea | 6 | 2 | 3 | 4 | 3.75 | 1.14 | ||||||
| Switzerland | 5 | 3 | 2 | 3 | 3.25 | 1.60 | ||||||
| Netherlands | 3 | 3 | 5 | 0 | 2.75 | 1.20 | ||||||
| France | 3 | 4 | 2 | 0 | 2.25 | 3.50 | ||||||
| Sweden | 7 | 0 | 0 | 2 | 2.25 | 3.50 | ||||||
| Japan | 1 | 0 | 5 | 1 | 1.75 | 0.17 | ||||||
| Finland | 0 | 4 | 2 | 0 | 1.50 | 2.00 | ||||||
| China | 2 | 2 | 0 | 0 | 1.00 | ∞ | ||||||
| Australia | 1 | 2 | 0 | 0 | 0.75 | ∞ | ||||||
| Great Britain | 0 | 1 | 0 | 0 | 0.25 | ∞ |
Germany has historically been the standout performer, although the American, Canadian and Austrian tallies have been growing at a faster rate. Norway had a shocker of a games in 2006 when it came to gold medals. It will be interesting to see how they bounce back in 2010.
I would expect the 2010 winner to be either Germany, Russia, United States, Canada or Norway. Austria and South Korea would be outside chances. Of all the nations, I think Germany is your best bet, with odds of 2.96 on Betfair at the time of writing this post. Norway looks to be a good value as well at 7.60 odds.
Total Medals
The table below lists the total medal tallies for selected countries over the past four Winter Olympics.
| Nation | 2006 | 2002 | 1998 | 1994 | Average | Growth Ratio | ||||||
| Germany | 29 | 36 | 29 | 24 | 29.50 | 1.23 | ||||||
| Norway | 19 | 25 | 25 | 26 | 23.75 | 0.86 | ||||||
| United States | 25 | 34 | 13 | 13 | 21.25 | 2.27 | ||||||
| Russia | 22 | 13 | 18 | 23 | 19.00 | 0.85 | ||||||
| Canada | 24 | 17 | 15 | 13 | 17.25 | 1.46 | ||||||
| Austria | 23 | 17 | 17 | 9 | 16.50 | 1.54 | ||||||
| Italy | 11 | 13 | 10 | 20 | 13.50 | 0.80 | ||||||
| Switzerland | 14 | 11 | 7 | 9 | 10.25 | 1.56 | ||||||
| Finland | 9 | 7 | 12 | 6 | 8.50 | 0.89 | ||||||
| France | 9 | 11 | 8 | 5 | 8.25 | 1.54 | ||||||
| Netherlands | 9 | 8 | 11 | 4 | 8.00 | 1.13 | ||||||
| China | 11 | 8 | 8 | 3 | 7.50 | 1.73 | ||||||
| South Korea | 11 | 4 | 6 | 6 | 6.75 | 1.25 | ||||||
| Sweden | 14 | 7 | 3 | 3 | 6.75 | 3.50 | ||||||
| Japan | 1 | 2 | 10 | 5 | 4.50 | 0.20 | ||||||
| Czech Republic | 4 | 3 | 3 | 0 | 2.50 | 2.33 | ||||||
| Australia | 2 | 2 | 1 | 1 | 1.50 | 2.00 | ||||||
| Great Britain | 1 | 2 | 1 | 2 | 1.50 | 1.00 |
Germany again has been the standout peformer, although Norway, United States, Russia, Canada and Austria look capable of taking the top spot in 2010. The United States and Sweden have been the standout performers in terms of growth.
Betfair currently has odds of 1.30 for Australia to win a medal, which looks reasonable.
Pingback: Australia Sports Betting » Blog Archive » 2010 Winter Olympics Medals Tally Predictions