France could be neck and neck with Japan for 5th place during the Paris Olympics, according to a study by the French Observatory of Economic Conditions (OFCE) published Wednesday, in a model which however includes Russia, although excluded from the competition.
The Olympics are due to begin in almost two months (July 26-August 11), and the target set by President Emmanuel Macron for the French team to finish in the top five nations remains on the wall.
An OFCE study supervised by Wladimir Andreff, professor at the University of Paris I (Panthéon-Sorbonne) published on Wednesday describes this objective as “attainable”, ruling out, however, the initial ambition of collecting between 70 and 80 medals (data by the former Minister of Sports Laura Flessel), a figure “out of reach”, according to her.
According to the different statistical prediction models used for this study, which takes into account criteria such as population, GDP per capita, the number of athletes lined up and the number of medals won at the previous Olympics, France would therefore be neck and neck with Japan for 5th place.
The United States and China are expected to rank in the top two places in this order ahead of Russia, as the study did not take into account the IOC ban on that country, decided after the invasion of Ukraine . If Russian athletes under a neutral banner are authorized to participate under conditions, the Russian contingent is not yet known.
In fourth place would be Great Britain and behind France, therefore at the same level as Japan and just behind Australia.
“The challenge to this ranking objective comes mainly from Japan,” assure the authors of the study, adding that Australia “is another threatening adversary”. France could glean according to an “optimistic but not improbable vision” between 48 and 55 medals according to this study, a scenario where the French team would benefit from the advantage “of being the host country of the Olympic Games”.
At the last Tokyo Olympics, France finished 8th, with 33 medals, including 10 gold.
On average, the countries organizing the Olympic Games benefit from an inflation of medals of around 40%, a multiplier coefficient of between 1.5 and 2.2 for those in gold, according to the Ministry of Sports.
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Published in April 2024, the most recent study by the American statistics institute Gracenote, which uses another forecasting model, placed France in 3rd place with 55 medals, including 28 gold.
This would be much more than in Tokyo and even than in Beijing in 2008, where the Tricolores achieved their most prolific harvest of the post-war period (43 medals).