THE DISMAL science has some bright news for China: its athletes have a shot at topping the medals table at the Beijing Olympics.

PricewaterhouseCoopers released a study that estimates China will win 88 medals during the Games this August, followed by the U.S. with 87 and Russia with 79. However, the report's author, PWC's London-based Head of Macroeconomics John Hawksworth, is quick to point out that China and the U.S. are 'basically neck and neck' in competition for the top spot.

PWC has conducted the study for the Summer Olympics since the 2000 Games in Sydney, and its China operation wasn't involved in coming up with the estimate. 'It's just a break from our normal serious economic analysis,' says Mr. Hawksworth.

Performing well is serious business for Chinese authorities, who have made topping the medals tally a tacit goal despite publicly playing down expectations. China came in third, with 63 medals, during the Athens Games in 2004.

The study isn't a prediction of Games performance, says Mr. Hawksworth -- it's more of a benchmark to judge a country's performance. The economists didn't try to predict whether any individual athletes would win. Rather, they made a statistical model that took into account historical performance, political and economic factors, as well as a boost that athletes from the home team usually seem to get.

Population and size of an economy are big factors in his model, but culture also plays a factor, says Mr. Hawksworth. He points out, for example, that tiny Australia always performs far better in the Olympics than huge India. 'Everyone in India is mad about cricket, but not the Olympics,' he says. By his calculations, some 90% of a country's performance in the Games medal tally is determined by these political and economic factors. 'And 10% is down to individual genius, or those other factors that can't be explained through science,' says Mr. Hawksworth.

'It would be a rather boring Olympics if it was totally predictable,' he adds.

For example, benchmarks for the 2004 Olympics ran afoul of both individual feats and doping scandals. PWC benchmarked an Athens tally of 70 for the U.S., Russia 64, China 50, Germany 45, Australia 41 and Greece 29. The actual outcome was U.S. 103, Russia 92, China 63, Australia 49, Germany 48 and Greece 16.

一项经济学研究预计，中国有望在北京奥运会上占据奖牌榜首位。

普华永道(PricewaterhouseCoopers)公布的研究结果预计，中国将在8月的奥运会上夺得88枚奖牌，高居奖牌榜首位，美国与俄罗斯则以87枚与79枚奖牌分列二、三位。但这份报告的作者、该事务所驻伦敦的宏观经济主管约翰•霍克斯沃思(John Hawksworth)很快又表示，中国与美国在奖牌榜首的争夺上基本是难分伯仲。

普华永道从2000年悉尼奥运会开始对夏季奥运会进行研究分析，其中国部门并未参与这一项目。霍克斯沃思说，这只是他们在日常严肃经济分析之外的休息消遣而已。

但对于中国体育部门来说，奥运会摘金夺银是件严肃的任务；虽然在公开场合刻意保持着低调，但中国已暗中将奖牌榜首位定为了自己的目标。2004年的雅典奥运会上，中国以63枚奖牌位居第三位。

霍克斯沃思表示，这项研究并不是对奥运会具体表现的预期，更多的是判断一个国家整体奥运实力的基准。这些经济学家不会去预测某位运动员是否会赢得比赛。他们只是构建了一个统计模型，综合考量一个国家历史成绩、政治与经济因素以及通常的东道主优势等方面因素。

霍克斯沃思介绍称，国家人口和经济规模是这个模型的重要因素，但文化因素也是不可忽视。他举例说，人口稀少的澳大利亚在奥运会上的表现总是优于人口大国印度。他解释道，“在印度，所有人都为板球疯狂，而不是奥运会。”根据他的推算，一个国家在奥运奖牌榜上90%的成绩是由这些政治与经济因素决定的。霍克斯沃思继续说，还有10%则取决于运动员个人天分，或是研究无法解释的其他因素。

他还称，如果奥运是完全可预测的，那么就会变得索然无味了。

以2004年雅典奥运会为例，普华永道的预期受到了选手表现与禁药丑闻的影响。该事务所当时预计，奖牌榜前几位分别是：美国70枚、俄罗斯64枚、中国50枚、德国45枚、澳大利亚41枚、希腊29枚。而最终奖牌榜战绩则是：美国103枚、俄罗斯92枚、中国63枚、澳大利亚49枚、德国48枚以及希腊16枚。