A day after UK Sport published their predictions, which said the "stretch" target was 41 medals, two new surveys have reached wildly different assessments of what Team GB is capable of in China.

 

In one, by Italian statistician Luciano Barra, Britain are predicted to win an amazing 48 medals, 18 of which will be gold and they will finish fourth behind the super-powers, United States, China and Russia, reaching the "aspirational target" of London 2012 four years early.

 

That would be a performance not achieved since London hosted the Olympics for the first time in 1908 when they won an incredible 146 medals, 56 gold, to top the medal table for the only time in the Games history.

 

In another, by Daniel Johnson,  a professor at Colorado College, Britain win a disappointing 28, of which only three are gold, to finsh 13th in the medals table behind Hungary, Italy, France, Germany, South Korea, Poland, Bulgaria and the Netherlands.

 

That would be the team's worst haul since Atlanta in 1996 when the only winner was thanks to the coxless pair of Steve Redgrave and Matthew Pinsent before they both became en-nobled, and Team GB came 36th overall.

 

Johnson's figures match the same total that a survey by PriceWaterhouse Coopers (PWC) reached last month.

 

Johnson claims he was "shocked at how accurate...predictions were" for the 2004 Athens Olympics.

 

Like the PWC model he does not base his figures on current statistics or performances.

 

Johnson used five basic pieces of data for each participating nation: GDP per capita, total population, political structure (democratic, authoritarian, military or communist), climate (the number of frost days) and home-nation bias.

 

Johnson said: “It’s a pretty simple model."

 

Barra, who has formerly held top positions in the International Association of Athletics Federations and Italian Olympic Committee, bases his predictions on results of leading competitions and is much more precise.

 

He estimates that Britain will claim a total of 48 medals, 18 of which will be gold, 10 silver and 20 bronze.

 

At the head of the medal table, in what everyone predicts will be a titanic struggle between China and the United States, Johnson is going for China with 44 gold medals and a total of 89 overall.

 

Barra, meanwhile, is predicting 105 medals for the US, of which 49 will be gold, compared to China, who will win an overall total of 88 - very close to Johnson's figure - but "only" 38 gold.