With Sydney's Olympic Games over, the final results are golden for the formula Tuck associate professor Andrew B. Bernard designed to predict how many medals a country will win.
The formula, co-authored with Meghan Busse of the Yale School of Management, had a 96 percent success rate for estimating the total victories of the top 36 contenders in the 2000 Games. Their study, "Who Wins the Olympic Games," considers population, per capita income and home team advantage to determine how well a nation will do.
Bernard and Busse nailed the U.S. outcome, correctly predicting that Americans would win 39 gold medals and 97 medals overall. They also correctly predicted 38 medals for France.
Additionally, their formula estimated the final counts within one medal for 12 countries and within three medals for 22 countries.
"The thing we were happiest about was that we got the total U.S. medals and gold medals correct," said Bernard. "I think we got a little bit lucky there."
The formula did not do as well predicting the outcomes for Germany and Russia. Expected to come in second behind the U.S. with 63 medals, Germany only won 57. Russia, whom they expected to only win 59 medals, actually received 88.
Australian athletes captured 13 more medals this year than during their 1996 performance. Their total came to 58 victories, six more than the formula's prediction of 52.
Despite these discrepancies, the success of Bernard and Busse's formula has attracted the attention of the world.
Already, Bernard has received calls from Italy, Switzerland and Vancouver. The Canadians, whose athletes did not perform well, were particularly interested to see if Bernard could advise them for the next Olympics.
Bernard also had a 4 a.m. interview with National Public Radio for their morning program.
The media attention has been a pleasant surprise for the team. "I didn't expect it to reoccur after the games," said Bernard. "I guess it's the result of getting one big important country right."
In the wake of their success, both professors plan to continue fine-tuning their research and make more predictions for the 2002 Winter Olympics.
Toward the end, Bernard admitted to checking up on the Olympics to compare the countries medal counts to the formula.
"By the second week, I was definitely keeping track. I was getting excited because the projections were coming closer and closer to our predictions."
Bernard said that he has always wanted to see the badminton competition, as the shuttlecock travels 200 miles per hour and athletes run the equivalent of five miles in a game. However, because this event is not broadcast in the U.S., Bernard instead most enjoys watching the 200 and 400 meter races.