It’s Opening Ceremony Day! After the quiet start that inevitably happens with the preliminary matches in some of the team sports preceding the ceremony, the real ‘meat’ of the Games starts tomorrow (or today, depending on where you are in the world). For a nerd like me, this next fortnight will be magical, even in these COVID times.
Anyway, back to the predictions. In this post we’ll look at the three sports at these Olympics that I’ve unofficially dubbed the ‘weapon sports’ – Archery, Fencing and Shooting.
Archery
The Archery events at the Olympic Games use the recurve archery format, as opposed to the compound archery type that is also done at the world championships. There are 64 competitors of each gender, who first all compete in a ranking round to determine the seeding, for both the individual events and the team events. For the individual and men’s/women’s team events, all competitors qualify for the next stage. For the new mixed team event, 16 of the 29 teams will qualify, which will be determined by the combined score of the top performing man/woman from each nation.
At the Rio Olympics South Korea dominated the games, winning all four gold medals awarded. Indeed, they are by far and away the most successful nation in modern Olympic archery competitions. In terms of other potential medallists, look to Brady Ellison and the US team to challenge for the men and, on the women’s side, Chinese Taipei (known as Taiwan outside the Games) figure to be among the contenders.
Fencing
The fencing events are tough to predict, as the draw for each event is only being held 24 hours before they start. Not to mention that it isn’t a sport I know that much about!
There are 12 events in total, with individual and team events in each of the three fencing disciplines – epee, foil and sabre. Expect a strong showing from the ROC, South Korea and Italy, all of whom have fine histories in the sport.
Shooting
Like most sports, shooting’s schedule has been streamlined in recent years to try and provide parity in event numbers between Men and Women, as well as to allow for mixed events to take place. In addition, the format is similar to that adopted for the Rio Olympics, where scores are wiped after qualifying and the finalists take part in a series of elimination rounds to determine the medallists.
India, the USA and China are expected to do well in these events. Great Britain has a small team but genuine medal chances in those events, though their prospects have been hit by the last-minute withdrawal of Amber Hill – the world number one in Women’s Skeet – after she tested positive for COVID.
Ian's World Of Sports 