The Netherlands will take a record number of medals at the Olympic Games in Tokyo next summer. At the very least, that’s the prediction of sports data agency Gracenote, which comes with the latest calculations a hundred days before the start of the biggest sporting event.
Gracenote expects Team Orange to return with no fewer than 46 medals, led by head chef Pieter van den Hoogenband. This places the Netherlands in fifth place in the medals table. The United States (114 medals) tops the table, followed by China (85), Russia (73) and Japan (59).
France, Australia, Great Britain, Germany and Italy are in the top ten, behind the Netherlands.
In July 2019, when Gracenote also performed a math, Holland was still twelve slides short. In just under two years, more athletes had shown they qualified to win medals.
The Summer Games orange formation record is 25 medals. It was in Sydney in 2000, when Van den Hoogenband himself, as a swimmer, still had a lot to do with it. At the previous Summer Games in Rio, the Netherlands won nineteen medals in 2016.
Predicting is more difficult than ever
The 46 Dutch slides are divided by Gracenote into 16 golds, 16 silvers, and 14 bronze medals. The data agency says it is becoming harder than ever to make predictions due to the coronavirus, revised sports calendars and qualification measures.
Moritz Hendricks, NOC * NSF Technical Director, acknowledges that. “There were very few competitions in the world in the last year,” he said at a press time on Wednesday. “If there were any games, it was basically European matches. I expect very exciting games, with many surprises. Let’s not consider ourselves as rich as the Netherlands, the rest of the world works hard like us.”
Gracenote is based on the gold medal by athlete Sifan Hassan (10,000 meters), BMX riders Niek Kimmann and Laura Smulders, track riders Harrie Lavreysen (keirin and sprint), Anna van der Breggen (road race and odd time experience) and ladies hockey.
Above all, the Netherlands must make a difference in sailing. Gracenote has counted no fewer than five golds for Orange in that sport.
