A 50% chance that either Danmark or Sweden will become World Champions in handball
Like in other places, there is a lot of excitement at Reykjavík University for the World Handball Championship, which starts in Sweden and Poland today. However, according to the results of the school's scientists, the probability that the Icelandic team will lift the trophy at the end of the tournament is unfortunately negligible, or only about 0.4 percent.
That is to say, if the results of the calculations of Dr. Peter O'Donoghue, professor at the RU's Department of Sports Science, and his team come true. Peter, who is widely known for his work, research, and teaching in sports performance analysis, put a lot of work into analyzing the possible results of the World Cup – however, just for fun.
Peter's research team used results from the 2021 tournament to model match results in terms of teams' rankings in previous continental and world championships. A simulator was programmed to play the tournament 100,000 times, simulating each match and progressing teams according to the tournament rules. The team most likely to win the World Championship is the 2021 champions Denmark who won 29% of the simulated tournaments, followed by Sweden, who came top 21% of the time. So there is a 50% chance that someone other than the top 2 will be World Champions. Indeed, there is a 10% chance that a team outside the World's top 6 can win it. As for Iceland's chances, they do have a chance of winning the tournament, but it is a slim chance. Iceland won 0.4% of the simulated tournaments. So what are the expectations for the Iceland team according to this exercise? Iceland have a 1.7% chance of being in the final, a 6% chance of being in a semi-final, and a 20% chance of making a quarter-final. They were in the top 10, 16, and 20 on 34%, 79%, and 94% of simulated tournaments. However, there is a 2$ chance Iceland could finish 4th in their group and compete in the President's Cup for 25th to 32nd place.
