Why is't Russia in the mix? This is their home game; they should be top 3.
They are. Problem is, a lot of Russian funding has routinely gone to the Summer Olympics. Plus, after the break up of the USSR, a lot of their top athletes and talent went to places like Ukraine, Kazakhstan, Belarus etc. Russia has now only started to get back to its form in the summer Olympics. Plus, while Russia is dominant in Figure skating and hockey, and other sports, they usually get manhandled in things like skiing and snowboarding which the US/Austria/Norway usually dominate in.
But this time they've gotten a lot of funding, where they will most likely break in the top 4.
It's going to be US/Germany/Canada/Norway/Russia/Austria as top countries. US is the favored overall winner just because they're so good at all sports. Norway will get a lot of the skiing, biathlon medals though. It's sort of how China usually gets a lot of gold in summer for events like ping pong, shooting, weightlifting, other more obscure sports, but does poorly in track and field.