Predicting the Summer Olympics (sort of)
 

​Hi all! For those who might not know me, my name is Jeff but I go by SAM on some sports forums. A hobby of mine is game programming, and I have for years been tinkering with an Olympics sim. In the past, I have run Olympics games on websites, but my program is in a bit of disrepair right now and it's not ready for that. However, I do want to resurrect that, and step one is seeing if my game can actually in fact predict the results of the Olympics with reasonable accuracy. I intend to test my game's results and compare them to some other prediction methods as well as the actual results of the Olympics.

So I figured I would share that endeavor with you!* I don't intend to get to all sports, but I am hoping to do what I can. My first predictions are for.....swimming. First, a data table, and then I will explain my process.



On the left are the countries, and their in-game rankings and rating. USA is the top-ranked swimming nation, Australia is 2nd, China is barely 3rd over 4th place Italy, and so on. My rankings are based on a combination of factors, including recent (and less recent) Olympics qualifications and medals, world championships qualifications and medals, and yearly results in worldwide swimming competitions.

The first projection I am looking at is simple: the recent results projections. Basically, who has the top swim times in each event THIS year. I am assuming top time of the year will win gold, second best time will win silver, and third-best time this year will win bronze.

The next projection I am looking at is historical results, though technically this is *recent* historical results. Basically, I averaged out the number of medals won by each country in swimming at 2020 Olympics, 2022 World Championships, and 2023 World Championships. I am combining three sets of results, so there are some rounding errors, which is why you see two separate *totals* listed. The rounded number of total medals and the actual fractional total.

Then, I am checking how MY game (Going for Gold, or GFG) works at projecting the results. Projection A is simple. I looked at the rankings of the athletes by event in the game. Top ranked is expected to win gold, second ranked is expected to win silver, and third ranked is expected to win bronze. I ran three separate trials and averaged, so once again there are some rounding errors.

Projection B is what happened when I actually used my game engine to simulate the results (using the generated athletes from Projection A). Once again, I averaged three separate trials and there are rounding errors.

******
THOUGHTS AND ANALYSIS

I am looking forward to seeing how my game does in this endeavor. I can't say that I feel supremely confident. The projections for GFG look....decent, but not great. Projection A I suspect will be a much better result than Projection B, but we will find out.

Some other things to watch out for when you watch the Olympics:

-The USA, Australia, and China are likely going to be the top three countries in the swimming medal table. However, will it be close at the top or not? The projections based on real-world data seem to show a good spread, but my GFG simulations gave the USA a huge advantage and minimized China's likelihood of even finishing top three. (I am almost certain they will)

-Will Ireland get a breakthrough? You'll notice that Ireland, which has not won any recent medals in swimming, is projected to win 2, but only in the recent results. They have a young athlete who has posted the top time in the world in two events this year, but who has never won a medal in anything before. (Daniel Wiffen) It will be interesting to see if he does. Currently, my program can't really model for "breakthrough athletes" such is this, which is why it may also be underestimating Hong Kong and Greece.

-Canada in 4th? My algorithms, which may be too heavily weighted towards the past 15-20 years, show Canada as 11th. Recent results show them more like 4th. (They had a breakthrough in 2020 and seem likely to continue that this year). Which will be more accurate in actual practice?

-Does France get any sort of home-field advantage? Neither of the real-world data projections like France's chance to do much. Will they benefit from hosting the games?

More updates as we get through the games. Thanks for reading!​

Very interesting. Thanks for sharing. I just wanted to comment on this. Since you are into the numbers you probably have it better than just my observation, but it seems like there is generally a "home water advantage" in swimming competitions. That doesn't mean they will dominate, but I would be surprised if there wasn't a few unexpected medals won for France.

I am also expecting some surprise French medals in swimming! That's one of the many reasons I am hoping to have a stable model, because that can help me eventually calculate what sort of boosts the "home country" gets in these sorts of events.

Okay, time for more projections! Previously, I did a projection for swimming. This time, it's gymnastics. First, the detailed data table, then an explanation of what you can watch for when watching the games!



First off, a word about the projections. Recent results looks at who is likely to win a medal based on this year's top gymnastics scores. The historical precedent looks at the amount of medals won at the 2020 Summer Games, 2022 World Championships, and 2023 World Championships and averages them out. GFG A involves using my program to run 3 simulations and finding the top 3 athletes in each sport, then averaging the results. GFG B involves actually running 3 simulations of results with my program and averages the medal results (this is likely going to be the weakest projection in my opinion, but it's the one I am trying to make stronger)

Some things I'm looking for with this data:
-Are my GFG rankings and ratings any good? Unlike the swimming rankings, my data for Gymnastics is showing many of the top countries being very close together in terms of overall talent level. I don't think that's actually true. Both the real world projections point to strong dominance from USA, Japan, and China in Gymnastics, with other countries usually just getting 1 or 2 medals. Also, my rankings show Germany as being high up in the Gymnastics world, and the real-world data doesn't match that at all.

-What's going on with Italy and Brazil? The two real-world projections differ greatly here. Brazil has had lots of success with recent medals, but this year's scores and data show a bleak picture for Brazilian success at the Olympics. Italy, meanwhile, is the exact opposite. This year's scores and data show a medal haul unlike what Italy has seen in Gymnastics in recent memory. Does it actually go that way in Paris?

-First time medalists in Gymnastics? Ahmad Abu Al-Soud of Jordan has won medals in Pommel Horse at each of the last two world championships. Mind you, the country of Jordan has never even qualified a gymnast for the Olympic Games, much less won a medal. It will be interesting to see if he can break through. Other reasonable possibilities to get their country's first gymnastics medal are Carlos Yulo of the Phlippines and Kaylia Nemour of Algeria. Obviously, my GFG rankings do not indicate strength from these countries- I hope to be able to model "breakthrough" athletes like this someday.

-Obviously, Russia not being invited to the Olympics is going to matter here. Many of the countries that don't usually medal might stand a better chance here because of it

-Just how many countries will medal? I think that's probably one of the biggest differences between my game's model and the real-world models.

Next update will be a team sports projection which I hope to complete prior to the Opening Ceremonies. After that, I'm not sure what else will happen- maybe Athletics.

I just want to say that an Olympics sim game sounds pretty awesome.

was watching Iraq and Ukraine play soccer last night.

Is this our Olympic discussion thread? If it is, I am actually excited for the games this year. The last couple I have been sort of "meh" on, but for whatever reason I am a little excited to see some competition and the pageantry. I think Tik Tok is part of it, because my feed has been full of athletes checking into the Olympic village. People like Ilona Maher, whom I had never heard of till now, has made me want to watch Women's Rugby. She is so funny and endearing that I want to root for her.

It's something I hope to make a full reality some day in the future. In the meantime, if you want to DM me an e-mail address, I can create a mailing list for a future beta test or release.

(That offer goes for anybody else reading as well)

I will certainly discuss plenty if others want to! I am big Olympics fan, though even more so for the winter Olympics. Still, because I am on vacation from my teaching job right now, I have plenty of time to watch. Spent the last couple of days watching a good bit of Rugby 7s and soccer. I feel for the Rugby 7s athletes, because 8 of the 12 men's teams have effectively been eliminated prior to the Opening Ceremonies of the games at this point. I get that they are doing it so that they can host the even in the Stade du France, but that still feels bad.

Rugby is fascinating. At first I"m like....what's the point of this game. Why does US even have a team. Then I thought. Huh...this is much simpler than all our american bullshit sports. I like it. Run back and forth. Pass it to people. Tackle them. Runrunrunrunrun. Dive Dive Dive! GOAL!
I can dig it.

Rugby 7s is super fun to watch. Quick 14 minute matches with lots of action.

Overnight in France, there was a series of what looks like coordinated arson attacks on the high-speed rail systems. It has affected 250,000 passengers, and the company that runs the system says it could carry through the whole weekend.

https://apnews.com/article/france-tr...source=Twitter

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Canadians can not be trusted

The Paris Olympics Already Has Its First Drone Controversy | HuffPost Sports

When I read that Gojira was going to perform at the Olympics, I immediately blew it off, assuming they'd be shown performing in some alley for approximately 3.6 seconds on the way to a commercial break. So I was shocked to see them get a full feature with Marina Viotti, an opera singer who dabbles in a bunch of different genres and has a metal band of her own (Soulmaker).

That may well have been the most widely-shown metal performance since Metallica famously performed One at the 1989 Grammy's, only to lose the Best Heavy Metal Band Grammy to Jethro Tull.

Okay, time for my next projection. This time, it's all 7 of the major "team sports" all at once. This may or may not be the final projection of the games, as I currently have no database for Athletics, and I'm not sure if I can get it built in the next week before Athletics competitions start. We'll see. Regardless, you will notice that this data table is set up a bit differently than the others. Here it is!


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First off, a word about the projections. World Rankings looks at who is likely to win a medal based on the current team rankings in that sport. (The International Handball Federation does not currently keep rankings for its member organizations) The Historical Precedent projection looks at the results of the previous Olympics and any world championships/world cups in that sport that have taken place since then and averages them. GFG A is basically a look at the top 3 teams according to the algorithm my program (Going for Gold) uses, which also takes into account past results.

I did not use the GFG B projection (which runs an actual sim using my game) because I know that my team sports are very broken right now and are not simming anywhere close to accurately.

Now, a few thoughts about the projections:
-A few of these are sort of obvious. For example, any projection that doesn't predict the USA to win both men's and women's basketball is clearly broken. Does that mean they will? Of course not. But every bit of data shows that that is what SHOULD happen. (US Women, if they win, will get their 8th consecutive gold medal)

-What order for Women's 3x3 basketball? All three projections like China, France, and the USA, but in a different order each time

-If you're looking for another "sure thing", you would be wise to consider backing Netherlands in the Women's Field Hockey Tournament.

-Conversely, there's already a chance that all three models on the men's soccer tournament will be wrong, given that Argentina already lost their first match to Morocco and is going to need to come from behind at this point. (Still doable, obviously)

-Speaking of soccer...my projections like the US Women's chances to win, but none of the major tournaments have gone their way in the last four years, and the FIFA ranking doesn't favor them either. I will be keeping an eye on that.

-Literally all three projections suggest New Zealand over Australia (with France for Bronze) in the women's Rugby 7s tournament. Is it actually going to go that way, or might France get a bump from playing at home?

-None of the volleyball projections agree. I'm not sure what to make of that. Worth keeping an eye on.

-I should finish by saying that I tend to think that very short team tournaments like we have in the Olympics can be a bit of a crapshoot, so take all of this data with a grain of salt. It's all likely to be a bit more chaotic than what you see here.

Again, possibly one more update in a week or so before the Athletics get going. Enjoy the games!

The French flag smoke on the Austerlitz bridge was cool af.

Agreed. Floating the teams down the river was such a great idea.

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Watched it earlier. If you're wondering, Kelly does not get better as the show goes on.

So is this guy running across the roofs the new Assassin's Creed?

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This shit
Is so weird.

Just got to the part you were talking about, Ksyrup. This is awesome!

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Wtf is up with the people swinging on poles and how are they attached.

I know a menage a trois is very French, but I didn't expect it in the opening ceremony. They should have had it as the new competition.

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It was amazing. One of the metal rags posted a note about how metalheads across the world were losing their shit on social media.

Once the official video comes out, I'll have to watch it again.

Yeah, the metal and the setting kicked ass

favorite post about anything ever

Very weird show, but honestly, I really liked it. So many of these ceremonies just kind of blend together, but with the rain and the combination of the boats and the unique performances and the floating cauldron...yeah, this one's actually memorable.

It is fun watching women's water wrestling.....what's that? Water polo? Sorry, I didn't see horses.

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Random take:

No sport should be in the Olympics unless an Olympic gold medal is considered the highest achievement in that sport.

poor japanese gym guy

Wemby really does look/play like someone got silly with create-a-player on a video game

France and Fiji about to start the final for Men's Rugby 7s. Should be good for the atmosphere alone- home nation, huge crowd, and Fiji is 2-time defending Gold Medalists

That Rugby final was fun. Antione Dupont! Antione Dupont!

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Forgot to add Water Polo to the team sports yesterday, so here's a table that includes that!

The French team was fantastic. Fiji couldn't be tackled by anybody else, and it felt like the French just overwhelmed them.

(Also, the play Dupont made at the start of the second half was fantastic)

Omg! So the guy running with the torch was the character from Assassin's Creed! Ubisoft is based in France.

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The way NBC has set up its coverage is garbage. I can't tell what's live and what's not, and I can't tell if everything live is being shown on Peacock or some things being held back and shown elsewhere.

This morning, I wanted to watch some tennis and they have a multiview with 4 "live" screens. I clicked on the Ruud match as they were showing it "live" on the multiscreeen and guess what? Coverage ended. What the hell were they showing it "live" for if it ended? So I clicked over to the Tsitsipas match - CDN error (whatever that means). Hey, Rafael Nadal is playing and it shows it started 20 minutes ago! Oh nevermind, just a picture of the Eiffel Tower and "coverage hasn't begun" message.

WTF.

Archery is like the Summer Olympic answer to Curling. Something you only see every four years but it's great.

China womens team just about hanging on in the gold medal final against the favorites South Korea.

It seems like TV coverage of the Olympics in the internet era has ALWAYS been horrible. Ironic that they were able to present it so much better back in the disconnected days of monoculture and 3 broadcast networks.

Watching the Women's Gymnastics qualifiers. Man, France had a bad night. They were coming off winning Bronze in Worlds, but they just absolutely choked in front of the home crowd.

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Yeah you don't usually see the whole team fall apart like that. feel bad for the french fans who won't get to see them compete for the gold.

Brazil will be the team that will provide the US a challenge. The US should win Gold as long they stay clean.

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I remember watching it in prior Olympics, it was beautiful how you see the arrow sailing thru the air.

But somehow, I kinda wish they were using less high tech, modern bows & arrows.

The Nadal/Djokovic match is sad to watch. Nadal might pick it up at some point but he's down 5-0. Not only is he on the downside of his career but still working back from injury. This almost feels unfair and slightly uncomfortable to watch.

IT WAS THE .....SALMON MOUSSE....

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I have watched most of the Olympics coverage in my home office since I got home. I have the Olympics schedule page on ESPN open on one tab to help guide me to the events I want to watch. Then I switched to either Peacock(most of the time) or NBC(rarely) to catch the events live. Peacock tends to be rather clear as to what is live and what is "encore".

The reactions of the three medal winners in the men's team gymnastics final is amazing. Gold in tears, Silver very somber, and Bronze overjoyed.

It is all in the expectations.

Chase Budinger playing beach volleyball in the Olympics is pretty cool.

The number of high-level athletes in the US who are also really good in another sport is always fascinating. It makes all of the pushes for youth specialization even more silly to me.

I know each box says what's live and what's not, but in my experience, it's a toss-up as to whether that's actually the case. Or worse, like on the multiview, they show something as live but it's just a replay until you click on that box to watch it in full screen and it tells you the event has ended.

I don't know much about international soccer and even less about Olympics given who may or may not be playing with leagues starting up, but I have to guess that Egypt being up on Spain 2-0 is a fairly major upset?

Perfect example of the Peacock coverage issue. On the main Olympics screen on my Peacock TV app, it's advertising the Nadal/Alcaraz doubles match. It shows live and that it started 1 hour 20 minutes ago. I click on it, and it says "coverage will begin shortly." Does that mean that match is delayed, does it mean it's already over and coverage of something else is going to start? WTF is happening?

Also, I'm glad they are showing so much stuff but I'm surprised some of the bigger, more mainstream sports have zero commentators. None for tennis, none for the Spain/Eqypt soccer match I turned on about 65 minutes in. I find that bizarre.

woot for Rugby!

Just saw the highlight of the "walkoff" win.

:banghead:

Was crazy, Australia had just scored and looked like time was going to run out, but i guess (?) in rugby the play is still alive even if the clock had counted down. Just a crazy way for US to get their first ever women's Rugby medal.

All right, watching the gym full of girls going through Jordan Chiles's routine was amazing. There is no better example of how much of a role model these athletes are. Love it!

Just watched the replay. Fantastic win! And Ilona Maher may have broader shoulders than mine, but she can get it.

Why are the crazy looking new Zealand people yelling at me

You know why.

Footbal should be banned from the Olympics until they stop sending Under-21 teams. Sports that don't want to showcase their best teams and players should just not be part of this event altogether. It's weird that soccer devalued over time, it used to be a full fledged one before the FIFA made it's own World Cup event, but it's been this bullshittery as long as I've seen Olympic Games. IOC had the balls to kick out baseball, then show them again and tell soccer they're next.

Men’s, yes totally agree. I’d like to see them consider Futsal or 7 a side, but as currently constructed I have less than zero interest in watching any of it.

Where is tarcone when commentary on Simone Biles' weak mentality is needed

I really need a pro Rugby 7s league. It's been awesome watching these physical, but quick matches. Loved them.

So, that's actually a thing: https://www.svns.com/en

The same teams that you saw have a yearly set of competitions with like 8-9 tournaments each year. The US usually hosts a competition in Vegas every year that NBC tends to televise

Kickass picture from the surfing competition, Gabriel Medina from Brazil 'jumping off' after a wave.

I saw that on Facebook, and I said to myself "I'm not going to fawn over that until I know it's not photoshop".

It's absurd that the top twenty times in the women's 1500 are all owned by Katie Ledecky.

What Suni Lee just did in the all around is what the Olympics is all about. All the pressure on her to come up huge on her floor routine to secure a medal and she comes through.

weakling

? I mean I am but why you call me out like that?

Lol. I knew I wouldn't be able not to be spoiled from the gymnastic results if I chose to be online, but my stinking Iphone didn't have to push message me the results.

Indeed.

Amazing performances by all the medalists. When Andrade came off the floor after finishing her routine, she had the look of someone who knew she had done the gymnastic version of "scored too fast" with Simone Biles going on the floor next.

The Turkish guy who just rolled out of bed in a t-shirt and won a silver medal in some shooting event was really funny.

His comments on his ex-wife and their dog are great.

Only a matter of time until he gets milkshake ducked, but he's great right now.

dola

Why does our 3x3 basketball team look like an over-30 league at the YMCA?

Looks like we're a gold away from the first triple-double of the games.

It is strange. Like couldn't they have found some mid-level NBA guys to play in this? Maybe G-Leaguers? I know it's "different" from full court basketball but I feel like there has to be someone better than a 35-year old Jimmer Fredette.

I have watched any of the games just highlights so I am ignorant to what it is all about. Are there any players on any of the teams that still get paid to play five on five basketball playing in this tournament? I don't see the benefit for any player who is still getting paid to play five on five basketball to play in three on three games. Especially not under FIBA rules and officiating unless you are already familiar with both. If I had to send a 3x3 team, I would send a combination of guys that play for Overseas Elite in The Basketball Tournament. Does that team even exist anymore? At the very least, they would be familiar with FIBA rules, officiating, and playing under those conditions.

Don't know all the details but there's participation requirements that require players to rank high enough within the association, points presumably earned in 3v3 competitions. Meaning at the very least it's (i guess) some sort of longterm commitment to the sport and not a "Show up to Camp and get a crash course" type deal.
They also can't have ever played for the 'normal' USMNT.

https://fiba3x3.com/en/olympics/who-...rticipate.html

Too bad they can’t figure out how to get a squad of Hart/Bridges/Divencinzo/Brunson or Holmgren/Suggs/Timme/Kispert

Thanks for the link. Evidently the US men's team is also the Miami team which currently ranked first on the World Pro Tour.

Alcaraz will be playing for the gold. Meanwhile, Djokovic made the semis but appears concerned he reinjured his knee. That has implications not just for the rest of the Olympics but the US Open as well.

Other a bit more niche sports do it similarly. Curling for example i am pretty sure.

Another analogue in terms of that making sense potentially is Tennis doubles, where you don't usually pair top singles players (not that hasn't worked as well, for example in 92 Boris Becker and Michael Stich for Germany) but often players that are at best serviceable singles players but play together really well. Or at least a doubles specialist paired with a WC singles player (Nadal in 2016 played and won with a partner who never cracked Top 100 singles).

Last olympic winners as a high ranked 213 and 295 on the singles tour.

Re-reading the eligibility i'm quite curious how the age restriction on 18 and over would hold up in court given that younger athletes are allowed to compete elsewhere.

I could not completely finish them, but here are some athletics projections to take a look at:

ETHIOPIA???

Note to all international soccer competition organizers:

Evidently this is a well kept secret for you so let me help you out.. The men's national teams from France and Argentina hate each other at the moment. Same for matches between the Netherlands and Argentina from what I can tell.

Have plans to deal with that whenever they face each other.

Thanks

It's a country in Africa, in sports best known, perhaps only known, for their long standing rivalry with Kenya in the Athletics long distance running events. Those two are so dominant, I'm not surprised SecretAgentMan's models have two two countries in 2nd and 5th place in a projected medals ranking.

Joe Burrow said he wants to play flag football for the 2028 Olympics.

So does Mahomes.

I really hope the NFL adjusts camps to let that happen.

I should note that only one of the projections (the one that looks at top times so far this year) favors Ethiopia as the 2nd best country. The projection that looks at the world championship/Olympics results from the past four years actually favors Jamaica to be second.

I actually think that the second projection is more likely to be true. The "top times" projection often predicts 2 or 3 medals for Ethiopia in the distance events, and because those events involve a lot of pack racing, I don't think that's likely. For example, in the 10,000m final earlier today, Ethiopia had the top three times in the field this year. (Actually, they had the top 6) But they only got one medal (a silver), with Uganda winning and an American taking third.

I'm still trying to work on my own program's projections as well. Might still get one done for just the Sprinting events, because I've got that about halfway completed.

Is it based on actual starter or (if not) does it take into account numbers limitations? (I.e. nationa with more high quality athletes than allowed to register)

I fully expect owners to be sticks in the mud about that and have Goodell quash it.

Actual starters, though I just assumed that the Top 3 times in the nation were the 3 that made the Olympic team, which is not a guarantee. (I was working pretty quickly on these)

Why on God's green earth would anyone with even half a brain allow a major investment to go take part in something that's basically a joke in its very existence?

That's one of the most asinine things I've ever heard in sports ... and that's a tough bar to clear.

Wow. Femke Bol. Phenomenal. The whole team ran well, but still, wow. I was jumping in front of my tv.

Coastal Carolina's own Melissa Jefferson with the bronze metal in the 100 meters. Woot! nice story with the winner-she is the first ever medalist from Saint Lucia, and its gold.