Topend Sports Logo

2021 Predicted Medal Tally

Even predicting whether the Tokyo Olympics were going to go ahead was not easy, so predicting performances are even more difficult with the disruptions that have occurred to the athletes' training, competition and qualifying events in the lead up.

We have found several predictions online of the expected medal tally for the 2021 Tokyo Olympic Games, though some of the early predictions of the medal winners may not be accurate, more so than usual because of the delayed start of the Games.

Below are just the top-10 positions from each prediction model that we have found. The method used to predict the winners varies, some are from scholars using economics and a range of factors to base their prediction, while others use recent competition results and possibly a bit of gut feeling. Once the actual results are known, we will assess the accuracy of the prediction equations.



Where there has been more than one prediction overtime (such as for Gracenote), only the most recent prediction is shown. There are two sets of tables, one for predictions of the total gold medals won, the other for predicted total overall medals won. See more details about each of these prediction models here.

Predicted Gold Medal Tally

No surprise here, USA and China were predicted to top the gold medal table by all prediction models (and they got it right!) though the margin of one was much less than expected. Host country Japan was correctly predicted to be very successful (they finished third), as is often the case with the host country.

Table of predicted top 10 countries with TOTAL GOLD medals won

rank Gracenote
(July 16, 2021)
Olympic medals predictions
(July 24, 2021)
Uni of Groningen (2021) BEST Sports
(July 20, 2021)
Totallympics
(12 Dec 2019)
Towards Data Science
(28 July 2019)
1 USA (40) USA (50) USA (47) USA (47) USA (51) USA (30)
2 China (33) China (39) China (38) China (30) China (42) China (25)
3 Japan (26) Russia (27) Japan (24) Russia (24) Russia (28) Russia (19)
4 Russia (21) Great Britain (21) Russia (23) Japan (22) Japan (17) Germany (18)
5 Netherlands (16) Japan (16) Great Britain (20) Netherlands (15) Australia (15) Great Britain (14)
6 Australia (16) Australia (15) Netherlands (12) France (15) Great Britain (15) Australia (13)
7 GB (14) Germany (15) Germany (12) South Korea (11) Netherlands (14) Brazil (12)
8 Germany (13) Netherlands (10) France (11) Australia (10) Germany (14) France (11)
9 Hungary (9) France (10) Italy (11) Italy (10) France (13) Spain (11)
10 Italy (8) Hungary (8) South Korea (11) Germany (9) Hungary (9) Canada (10)

Predicted Total Medal Tally

No surprise here, USA and China were also predicted to top the table of the total medals won in most predictions. They were all right, the USA did win the most medals, with China second.

Table of predicted top 10 countries with TOTAL MEDALS won

rank Gracenote
(July 16, 2021)
Olympic medals predictions
(July 24, 2021)
Uni of Groningen (2021) BEST Sports
(July 20, 2021)
Frontiers (2022) Totallympics
(12 Dec 2019)
Towards Data Science
(28 July 2019)
Financial Times (2021) Bleacher Report (July 22, 2021)
1 USA (96) USA (113) USA (127) USA (113) USA (107) USA (102) USA (82) USA (121) USA (115)
2 Russia (68) China (82) China (80) China (76) China (95) China (95) China (64) China (72) China (84)
3 China (66) Russia (70) Russia (74) Japan (69) Germany (54) Russia (75) Russia (57) GB (66) GB (50)
4 Japan (60) GB (54) Japan (64) Russia (68) GB (51) Japan (57) Germany (54) Japan (56) Russia (48)
5 GB (52) Japan (51) GB (54) GB (52) Russia (47) Australia (50) Australia (42) France (52) Japan (45)
6 Netherlands (48) Australia (45) France (41) Italy (41) Japan (45) GB (54) GB (40) Russia (51)  
7 France (42) Italy (43) Australia (40) Netherlands (40) Canada (39) France (44) France (36) Germany (42)  
8 Italy (41) Germany (40) Germany (39) Germany (40) France (37) Germany (40) Brazil (35) Australia (28)  
9 Australia (40) France (33) Italy (35) Australia (39) Italy (29) Netherlands (37) Spain (31) Italy (28)  
10 Germany (35) Netherlands (31) Netherlands (34) France (36) India (23) Italy (35) Canada (31) Canada (22)  

References

Other predicitons not analyzed



Related Pages

send us a comment Any comments, suggestions, or corrections? Please let us know.

Olympics Extra

The next Olympics will be in LA 2028, the next Winter edition in Milan-Cortina 2026. Check out the list of Olympic Games sports, as well as discontinued and demonstration sports.

Major Events Extra

The largest sporting event in the world is the Olympic Games, but there are many other multi-sport games. In terms of single sport events, nothing beats the FIFA World Cup. To see what's coming up, check out the calendar of major sporting events.

 → How to Cite