Mostly based on world championship or like results over the past 12 months or so, all the usual suspects are amongst the top echelon – with Australia, despite all the dire predictions sitting promisingly in seventh spot.

It is of course a guess, based on results two years out from the big dance, but Barra’s table has been surprising accurate over time.

Much of this is to do with the reality that for the major players what they lose on the swings they pick up elsewhere.

His table uses the traditional ranking based on gold medals as the most significant factor which currently places the US on top with 35 ahead of traditional top rivals China with 32 and Russia with 28.

But in total medals the situation is far more interesting with the US and Russia tied 88 apiece with the People’s Republic just eight adrift.

What is most notable is Barra’s predictions about Great Britain which had a fabulous home Games in London in 2012 with a fourth placing on the table with 65 medals in total.

It was on the back ofamassive investment in talent from their national sports lottery.

But since then there have been cutbacks, rationalisation of which sports and which disciplines within them are funded and now Barra suggests the Brits may tumble down the list by as many as 28 medals overall.

Sure they had a few stars hang on for London just as Australia experienced in 2000 but nearly 30 medals can hardly be attributed to that factor.

One worrying sign for Australia is that our new grand plan Winning Edge is heavily based on the British model.

If Barra is right than perhaps we should be looking elsewhere for ideas – or sticking with our own conceptss which to date have not served us to badly.

In fact the Barra table provides quite encouraging news for us.

Of the 36 medals he forecasts, one more than in London two years ago, 18 are silver.

Turn four of those into gold and we would leapfrog the British into sixth - the most realistic spot for which we could aim.

The reality is the based on Barra’s numbers, the top five, with France (19 golds) and Germany (18) joining the big three, are just too far ahead for Australia to expect anything higher.

The resurgence in Australian swimming essentially provides the key to where we finish.

The promising results in the Glasgow and the Pan Pacs a few weeks later are heartening because there are many medals available for the taking if our swimmers are on song.

The problem with too many of the other sports in which we are competitive such as hockey and the new Games discipline of golf is that there are only two medal events on offer in each. 

For the real worry is just below us in Barra’s document where Japan and Korea sit on the same number of predicted golds as Australia (nine) and the Netherlands, Hungary and heaven forbid New Zealand slated for eight.

Sixth sounds great, but 12th would probably be regarded as a disaster, more so if the Kiwis were to trump us.