Predictions of gold-medal performances in athletics and swimming.

We summarize here some of the results obtained with our analysis. We list several specialties in athletics and swimming performed by male and female athletes. For each specialty, we report from left to right: the name of the specialty, the best estimates of the asymptotic performance value , the best estimate of the mean value , the best estimate of the standard deviation , the statistical significance or -value of the test of normality, the number E of Olympic Games that included the specialty, the probability P that the actual world record will be beaten in London 2012, and the most likely performance value that gold-medal winners will obtain at the next edition of the Olympic Games. For shortness of notation, in swimming specialties we abbreviate “freestyle” with “fs”, “backstroke” with “bs”, and “breaststroke” with “brs”. The values of and are reported in seconds for running and swimming races, and in meters for jumping and throwing events.