Olympic medal counts: Here’s my attempt
to predict the gold medal counts based on jet lag
The 2̶0̶2̶0̶ 2021 Tokyo Olympics are almost upon us, in the most unusual of times as the world is slowly emerging from the pandemic.
Being obsessed with jet lag means that I tend to view world events through the lens of jet lag, and the Olympic Games is definitely no exception. While there have been several models used to predict Olympic medal success, none of them have taken jet lag into account as far as I know. And while jet lag might only be a very small effect, remember that the difference between taking home a gold medal versus a silver medal can be measured in milliseconds.
So I’m going to hopefully predict gold medals of leading nations (not silver or bronze), taking jet lag into account. The Olympic Village will only be open five days before the start of the games, and given the Japanese public’s hostility to the Games, I can’t imagine a lot of venues will be throwing their doors open to foreign athletes much ahead of time.
So let the games begin. But instead of a top five, I’m going to give you:
TWO TOP FIVES! Taste that top 5 goodness, and accept no substitutes.
Not only does the Japanese team not have to deal with jet lag, but they have the well-recognised host country advantage. Every country that is the host has done extremely well when they host the Olympics, and I expect Japan to be no exception. Team Japan should perform like it’s 1964, the last time they hosted the Olympics. But this is a brave prediction, so here goes:
While we tend to think of most Russians living in Europe, Vladivostok is just off the coast of Japan, and there’s even a ferry directly to Japan (when there’s not a pandemic, of course). It’s a simple matter for the Russians to send their athletes to Siberia weeks in advance, have them train in the same time zone as Japan, and completely avoid jet lag.
This is a bit of a no-brainer, with South Korea just off the coast of Japan. Back in 2012 a free Australian magazine mX called South Korea “Nice Korea” and North Korea “Naughty Korea”, leading to a denunciation from the [North] Korean Central News Agency, accusing the newspaper of “bullying” them.
That’s right, a free (and now defunct) Australian newspaper bullied a nation of more than 20 million people. Our power is astonishing, we must use it wisely. So I have nothing bad to say about either Korea, oh no siree! Expect both Koreas to do well in the upcoming Olympics, and here’s my prediction for Nice – oops, I mean South Korea:
A powerhouse of Olympic medal counts, and a nation more than capable of going toe-to-toe against the US. Again, expect China to do well because of the proximity to Japan, providing there are no more doping scandals. Oops, did I say that out loud?
Aussie! Aussie! Aussie! Oi! Oi! Oi!
We haven’t done so well at the last couple of Olympics, and when you factor in jet lag it makes perfect sense. London is a very long way away, not just in distance, but in time zones (10 hours!) – and Rio is absolutely brutal, with an 11 hour time zone distance plus flying east, which is harder. Tokyo by comparison will be easy for Australian athletes, being one hour behind the east coast and one hour ahead of the west coast. So look for that glint of gold coming home to Australia.
Not all countries are going to be so fortunate, however. If there are winners there are going to be losers, so here are a few countries that are likely to not do as well as in previous games.
It’s a good 9 hour time zone difference (plus or minus an hour for daylight savings), and the British have to fly east – a long way east. For direction of flight, east is a beast, west is best (for most people). So Team GB’s gold medal count might not be quite as much as in previous years.
Likewise, another team flying a long way east, almost as far as the British. We’re likely to see the French team not perform as well as in previous games.
Again, flying a long way east will take the edge off performance here, so expect a few less gold medals from the Germans.
At the risk of sounding like I’m on repeat, flying east a long way. The Italians have received 8 gold medals for the last couple of games, but that might be one or two lower this time round.
USA! USA! Almost as good a chant as the Australian one. ;-)
The other powerhouse. Unlike the European countries, the Americans are flying west, which is generally not so bad. However, it is a long way west, which is likely to take the edge off their performance. Speaking of long flights, it reminds me of the time I was at San Francisco Airport behind a plane load of people who had just arrived from Tokyo, and a young woman ahead of me in the queue was wearing leather pants. Because who wouldn’t want to wear leather pants on a 10 hour flight? Let’s hope Team USA don’t have leather pants as part of their Olympic uniform, and have to wear them on the plane to Tokyo.
Now, will these numbers have any accuracy, or will COVID-19 completely shred them? Will I proudly point to this column like I’m the Nostradamus of the Olympics, or will I quietly delete this and hope nobody notices? Will I then be forced to assume a new identity like I’m in the witness protection program? We’ll find out in a few weeks.
And as always, h̶a̶p̶p̶y̶ ̶t̶r̶a̶v̶e̶l̶s̶ stay at home!
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For attribution, please cite this work as
Jasper (2021, July 21). The Jet Lag Guy: Game of Zones. Retrieved from https://jetlagguy.com.au/posts/2021-07-21-game-of-zones/
BibTeX citation
@misc{jasper2021gameofzones,
author = {Jasper, Dr Steve},
title = {The Jet Lag Guy: Game of Zones},
url = {https://jetlagguy.com.au/posts/2021-07-21-game-of-zones/},
year = {2021}
}