Team GB face close battle with France to win medal table duel ahead of final weekend of Olympics in Paris – as stats boffins tip host nation to edge ahead

In rugby they call the Anglo-French battle Le Crunch. Here in Paris, it is numbers that are being crunched as chiefs from Britain and France try to forecast who is going to win their medal table duel.

With two days to go of the Olympics, Team GB are level with the host nation on 14 golds and 20 silvers, but above them on bronzes.

However, they have fewer serious gold medal contenders on the final weekend, putting them at serious risk of finishing behind France in the medal table for the first time in 20 years.

‘For France, three more gold medals looks realistic at this point, whereas it looks more like one or two for Great Britain,’ said Simon Gleave, head of analysis at Nielsen’s Gracenote, who use a statistical model to forecast the medal table before the Olympics.

Gracenote’s pre-Games prediction was for France to beat Team GB, but they had the nations placing third and fourth in their virtual medal table behind USA and China.

Both nations have the same number of golds and silvers, but Team GB are ahead by one bronze and face a battle to stay there (pictured – Jack Carlin after winning bronze in men’s sprint final)|

As of last night, USA and China are first and second, with Australia third, Japan fourth, Britain fifth and France sixth.

‘Britain are slightly behind the schedule we had, with some near misses like Adam Peaty in the 100 metres breaststroke and Matthew Hudson-Smith in the 400m,’ said Gleave. ‘It means their gold medal total is going to be slightly down.

‘Team GB need to pick up at least one more gold to hold off a number of other countries. We predict two to three more going to Italy and the Netherlands.’

Britain’s best hopes of gold this weekend come on Sunday, with track cyclist Emma Finucane in the sprint and Kerenza Bryson and Kate French in the modern pentathlon. France could add to their gold haul on Saturday in the men’s volleyball final, women’s handball final and women’s +67kg taekwondo.

The French are well on course to achieve President Emmanuel Macron’s target of a top-five finish and have already won a post-war record number of medals overall.

Olympic host nations traditionally perform strongly given the advantage of a home crowd and the extra investment that goes into sports in the build-up to the Games. Team GB won a post-war record 29 golds at London 2012.

Stats agency Nielsen Gracenote predicted France would beat GB ahead of the games, but highlighted the near misses for Britain, including Adam Peaty in the 100m breaststroke final

France have already won a post-war record number of medals overall, with swimmer Leon Marchand winning an astonishing four gold medals and one bronze medal at the games

France’s improvement from Tokyo 2020 – when they placed eighth on the medal table with 10 golds and 33 gongs overall – was expected by British bosses.

At a pre-Olympics briefing, UK Sport director of performance Kate Baker said: ‘France had a disappointing Tokyo, but we would be mad not to assume that they are going to capitalise on a home Games. It will give them a competitive advantage.’

UK Sport – the funding agency of British Olympic sport – set Team GB a target of retaining their top-five position in the medal table, which remains in the balance.

Their stated medal range of 50 to 70 has already been achieved, although this is set to be Britain’s lowest number of golds since Athens 2004 and their worst medal haul since Beijing.