Predictably Olympic

As I mentioned in my opening post on the blog (congratulations for coming back for a second read by the way! Commendable dedication!), one of the things I’ll be doing on the blog is predicting multiple sporting events. And sporting events don’t come any bigger than the Summer Olympics.

Whether you are a fan of football or rowing, weightlifting or speed climbing, the Games of the XXXII Olympiad (to give them their official name) has something for every sports lover.

Over the next few days, I’ll be trying to post predictions for all the events (gulp). But, before I do, I thought I would share a few factors that you should take into consideration before either listening to those predictions or – more likely – start mocking me for their inaccuracies.

The COVID Pandemic

Let’s get the elephant in the room out of the way first, if for no other reason than this is a small room, definitely not suited to the storage of pachyderms.

The ongoing pandemic has already had a huge effect on the Games themselves, forcing their postponement by a year. They’ve also impacted athletes, who have had to deal with not only that delay but also limited competition chances and training opportunities, not to mention the obvious health concerns. Even this week, some athletes have tested positive and been forced to drop out of the Games. Undoubtedly more will be forced to do so before the medals are awarded. All of this makes these Games arguably the most unpredictable in recent memory.

General Fitness

I’m choosing to separate this from the COVID issue as it is something more general – sometimes even the best athlete gets injured. You can be the overwhelming favourite in an event but, if you pull a hamstring halfway through your first heat, that might be it. For that reason, predictions are obviously made based on the expectations that all athletes selected will be fit. If I could accurately predict injuries, I would probably be earning a lot more money than I do being employed by a government somewhere as a soothsayer.

The Luck of the Draw

This is an issue that occurs most frequently in the team sports. To prevent teams from seeking favourable draws in the knock-out stages of a tournament, as infamously happened in badminton at the London Games in 2012, some sports have opted to not have a defined draw published in advance of the tournament but to make the draw following the group stages with limited seeding. This change can make it slightly harder to predict how a competition might unfold in advance.

Unhelpful Athletes

This hopefully won’t be a major issue but will crop up a few times, particularly in athletics and swimming. Some of the superstars of these events, such as Sifan Hassan on the track or Caeleb Dressel in the pool are entered into multiple events. It is possible that Dressel may take part in all those events but, if he is worried about his form, he could potentially drop one or two of his less favoured events at the last moment.

This is especially true of Hassan. She is currently entered into 3 events – the 1500m, 5000m and 10000m. It’s very likely that she will do two of them and will be a strong medal favourite in whichever two she does. However, because of the vagaries of the schedule, it would be a huge shock to see her even attempt all three. However, Hassan has not yet indicated which event she will drop, which is unhelpful for those making predictions! My personal belief is that she’ll drop the 1500m, hence why I’m not including her in my predictions for that event (sneak preview there) but were she to surprise me, she would absolutely become a medal contender.

So there, you go. I’m getting my excuses in early. If you have read all that and still rely on my predictions, I admire your stubbornness/persistence (delete as applicable).

EDIT – in the hour or two since I’ve posted this, we’ve already seen another COVID related withdrawal, with Coco Gauff, the current world number 25, dropping out of the Games. I’ve no doubt that we’ll see more before the Games officially open on Friday, let alone during the competition itself. I’ll be doing my best to update predictions where possible, but obviously I can’t guarantee that I’ll get around to all of them!