Can Data Miners Tell How Many Olympic Medals a Country Will Win?

DC's Smithsonian museums (there are 17 of them here in the city) are among America's most treasured and visited places. But the Smithsonian also publishes a series of some of the most interesting, fact-filled blogs appearing anywhere on the internet. Each Sunday, The Prices Do DC re-posts an entry that initially appeared in one of those highly-readable blogs. Hope you enjoy and maybe we'll see you soon at the Smithsonian.

The American Olympic contingent at the opening ceremony: How many medals will they win?

If someone asked you to predict the number of medals each country is going to win in this year's Olympics, you'd probably try to identify the favored athletes in each event, then total each country's expected wins to arrive at a result.

Tim and Dan Graettinger, the brothers behind the data mining company Discovery Corps, Inc., have a rather different approach. They ignore the athletes entirely.

Instead, their model for the Sochi games looks at each country's geographic area, GDP per capita, total value of exports and latitude to determine how many medals each country will win. In case you're wondering, it predicts the U.S. will come out on top, with 29 medals in total.

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