It requires doubling their achievements in London but Australia are aiming to bring home 16 gold medals from the Rio Olympics. Chef de mission Kitty Chiller says Australia's 410-strong Olympics team had to win "15, maybe even 16" gold medals between them, among a total medal haul of about 45, to reach Australia's goal of a top five finish in the overall medal count. Chiller, who appeared in Sydney to name the women's and men's rugby sevens squads, conceded it was an ambitious but possible target.  
"That's double the number of gold medals we won in London. For any country to double the number of gold in one [four-year period] is a huge ask. I genuinely believe we can do it," she said."We finished our benchmark event last year ranked seventh, with 13 gold medals and 37 overall. Most importantly we had 18 fourth- and fifth-placed finishes in our benchmark event."Australia won 35 medals in London in 2012, including eight gold, 15 silver and 12 bronze, coming eighth on the overall ladder behind top five finishers the US, China, Great Britain, Russia and South Korea. As always, a strong swimming team heads to Rio, while cycling, sailing and rowing are also expected to perform well. But Australia's newest Olympians, the women's rugby sevens squad, could be the first bit of good news to come out of Rio. They are ranked No.1 in the world as the reigning world series champions, and are favourites to win gold in one of the first events on the calendar next month. "Yes we're going to rely on swimming, we always do," Chiller said. "We know from history that the number of medals swimming wins in the first week, is normally around a third of what we can expect to win overall. Do we like the fact that we are always relying on swimming? Not necessarily, and that's why there's a big push that we do need to get those one or two other medals from other sports across the board."Australia will field their biggest ever team in Brazil. With many countries still finalising their numbers and Russia still under a doping cloud, Chiller predicted Australia would be among the five largest teams competing in Rio, behind China, the United States, France and Great Britain.