Each year, a significant portion of government spending is devoted in professional or amateur sports. Some analysts argue that these investments contribute significantly to the success of a country at the Olympics. We present an econometric analysis of the number of medals won at the Olympics. We introduce public sports investment as a potentially important factor influencing the number of medals won by a country. Our approach allows to control for the unobservable heterogeneity of countries participating in the Olympics. To our knowledge, we provide the first model of Olympic success using a count data model for panel, estimated using instrumental variables and capturing time-invariant characteristics of nations. According to our selected specifications, a country with mean characteristics should have increased its public sports investment  by 72 to 94 million dollars, ceteris paribus, to obtain an additional medal at London Summer Olympics in 2012.