Who will emerge as the overall champion in the Beijing Olympics? According to Luciano Barra, the United States will retain its title while China will land in second place.

His projection, issued last December 2007, is as follows:

1. United States: 98 medals (47 gold)
2. China: 89 medals (38 gold)
3. Russia: 88 medals (32 gold)

Barra, an Olympic official from Italy, earlier predicted that China will top the gold medal race (China, 45; U.S., 41; and Russia, 34) but he revised his projection and came up with the one above.

Anyways, how did this Barra guy arrive at his numbers? It’s no rocket science, my friend, what he did pala is to look at the results in the most recent world championships. If there’s no world championships for a particular sport, he looked at the equivalent event for that sport.

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