Rio Olympics 2016: India will win 8 medals, predicts Goldman Sachs report

The Olympics village in Rio

The wait is finally over and it’s the week of the 2016 Olympic Games in Rio. This means it's time for sports experts, psychics and economists and computer engineers to come up with their predictions for the games. And according to a prediction from Goldman Sachs, India might go on bag 8 medals at the Summer Games.

Psychics began to be taken seriously after the rise of Paul the Octopus in 2010, who predicted all the results of the 2010 FIFA World Cup in South Africa. In an increasingly capitalist world, economists and their predictions are turning out to be very popular as well.

This brings us to the report released by top investment bankers Goldman Sachs which predicts the number of medals each country will win at Rio based on the economic, political and institutional traits of the country. 

Goldman Sachs predicts the United States of America and the Republic of China to dominate and win 106 and 89 medals respectively. 2012 hosts United Kingdom will finish with 59 medals in the third place.

They have also predicted that the Indian contingent will end up with 8 medals to their name, with only one of them being a Gold medal. Should this be the result in Rio, India will go two better than London where they won 6 medals. 

This would, however, fall two medals short of SAI’s aim for the Rio Olympics. Sports Authority of India (SAI) are aiming for a tally of 10 medals in Rio this year with a contingent of over 100 athletes travelling to the city.

Goldman Sachs’ report is highly valued due to the accuracy of their predictions, which they proved during the 2012 Olympic games correctly by predicting the number of medals that hosts, the United Kingdom would win. 

This comes only a few days after a computer algorithm predicted India to only win two medals at the Rio Olympic Games. The Algorithm predicted that Jitu Rai would win a Silver in Shooting while the pair of Sania Mirza and Rohan Bopanna would win a Bronze medal in tennis.

Considering that India is sending quite a large contingent to the games, we should be expecting little more than just two medals in the Olympics this time around.