According to a top-member of the Russian olympic committee Vladimir Vasin, the Russians will get at least 25 medals at the Winter Olympics in Torino. In a statement quoted by the Russian news agency RIA Novosti, he said that they'll get at least five to seven gold medals in ice hockey, figure skating, biathlon, nordic skiing and bobsleigh. Over 400 Russian athletes will compete in Italy next year's Olympics out of a total figure of more than 2000 athletes. That means around 20 percent of all competing athletes would be competing to fullfill the Russian dream of a medal extravaganza. In that context I think 25 medals are not that much. Considering that the overall number of medals are around 235, and if distributed proportionally, they should at least win around twice their estimate. But alas for the Russians according to the medal table from the Salt Lake City Olympics in 2002 they Russian Bear had to manage with only 16. So the correlation between number of athletes and medals doesn't necessarily add up in the obvious statistical pattern.