Laura Trott shows off her two gold medals
Team GB enjoyed their best post-war Games at the London Olympics but they can expect a massive drop-off in Rio, according to new research.
Britain won 65 medals in London but the haul will fall to 45 in Brazil, scientists at the University of Wolverhampton have found in studies published in the British Journal of Sports Medicine.
The figure was reached using a mathematical formula based on the average number of medals won by Britain in the past and factoring the traditional drop-off that nations endure in the Games immediately after an event they hosted.
The same research team used their formulas to predict how well Britain would do this summer and their prediction of 63.5 medals was close to being spot-on.
The model says that home advantage should bring in 2.05 medals for every single medal usually won.
Britain has historical averaged 31 medals in the post-war era and, multiplied by 2.05, the medal haul for 2012 was therefore predicted at 63.5.
The model, which considers the results of all countries since the Second World War, predicts that the odds of a nation winning more medals immediately after hosting the Olympic Games increases by a ratio of 1 to 1.46.
Thus if the average medal tally of 31 was increased by this ratio, Team GB should win 45 medals at Rio 2016.
The authors said of their approach, known as logit regression, that: "This of course assumes that history will repeat itself and that the drop-off in medals won, seen with other hosting nations, will be mirrored by Team GB in Rio."