A post on my Facebook newsfeed said it all, simply and beautifully today, comparing predictions made by a global financial “powerhouse” with the resilience of Greek athletes.
“The Greek team was expected to win zero (0) Olympic medals by a Goldman Sachs report in July. The Greek team won 6 medals, of which 3 were gold. An ancient habit of beating expectations.”
Beautifully put, Vasileios Tsianos. Beautifully put indeed.
Mr. Tsianos linked to a July 2016 report (link at end of story to full report) put out by Goldman Sachs Global Investment Research team comprised of 18 pages of predictions they shared with potential investors on how national teams would do in the Rio 2016 Olympics.
Greece wasn’t even on the list of predicted medals.
The authors of the report— Francesco Garzarelli, Kamakshya Trivedi, Alberto Ramos and Mark Ozerov— took into account a whole bunch of economic statistics, tabulations and numeric indicators to come up with their “predictions”— even taking a jab at Greece in the introduction, writing that “Starting something doesn’t mean you’ll finish well. Greece, the birthplace of the Olympics, has poor sporting performance relative to what its economic indicators suggest it could achieve.”
Through all of their powerful algorithms and computer-generated statistics, the authors failed to take into a single— and most important— factor.
The human spirit that seems to come out of Greeks in crisis.
As Mr. Tsianos put it— it’s “an ancient habit of beating expectations.”
Thank you to all of Greece’s athletes, who participated against all odds and with practically no support from their pathetic government, who made Greeks everywhere proud.
And to the Goldman Sachs investors who used this report to bet against Greece… tough luck.
Hopefully you’ll know better next time to never underestimate the Greek spirit of Katerina Stefanidi, Panagiotis Mantis and Pavlos Kagialis, Spyros Gianniotis, Eleftherios Petrounias and Anna Korakaki– and all of Greece’s Olympians, past and present who have fought and won– against all odds.
See the Goldman Sachs report here: olympic-games-report-goldman-sachs.
