Monday, July 19, 2021

4 Days until Tokyo 2021- some thoughts and games predictions

 With just 4 days to go until the opening ceremony, I thought I might share some of my thoughts of the games.

First of all, I believe the Tokyo Olympic Committee made the right decision to not have any spectators attend the games. There has been another state of emergency in Tokyo and 2 other Japanese cities that wont expire until after the games end due to the Delta variant of COVID 19. It would have been great to have only vaccinated spectators from Japan and the world attend the games but overseas spectators were ruled out a few months ago and , in my opinion, only Japanese spectators at the games would be an unfair advantage for Japan. The latest plan by the Japanese Olympic Committee to have only Japanese spectators at the games with venue attendance capped at 50 percent or a cap of 10,000 spectators was canceled in favor of no spectators.

This will mostly affect the Opening Ceremony, which is made for spectators. Imagine 11,000 athletes walking around the stadium with no fans cheering them on. Its going to be weird watching the opening ceremony. To some extent, some athletes performances might be better or worse without fans. Without their families cheering them on from the stands it might be hard for an athlete to get motivated or if a performance goes wrong, the athlete wont have anyone to pick them up mentally. 

The TV schedule, which in past games was taped, will now be shown live. On some days some events start at 2 am or 4 am eastern time and continue throughout the day and evening.  Women's soccer matches start at 4:30 am, track and field events will be shown on Peacock tv streaming at 6am to 9 am and swimming events will be shown at 9:30pm eastern time, later into the games, track and field will be shown in the evening. I'm not sure how I will be able to watch the 8 sports I usually follow. Some indoor volleyball matches start at 10pm eastern and that conflicts with swimming events. On Thursday August 5 the gold medal matches of women's beach volleyball and women's soccer will be shown on two different networks at almost the same time.  The women's soccer gold medal match is at 10pm on USA network and the women's gold medal beach volleyball match will begin at 10:30pm on NBC. I usually watch both, especially if the USA is in either. Gymnastics events for both men and women will be shown on Peacock TV at 4 am and 6 am. If I want to watch these events live. I may be sleep deprived. The first 2 tests will be this week.  The first USA women's soccer match will be shown live Wednesday July 21 at 4:30 am eastern time and The Opening Ceremony will be televised at 6:55 am on Friday July 23. 

Blogging the games should be easier as Tokyo as Tokyo is 13 hours ahead of eastern time in the USA. The Rio games were blogged live.  What wont be easier is getting the photos of the medal winners. New rules were put in place by the Tokyo Olympic committee that there won't be any medal winner pictures taken of the athletes on the medal stand during the medal ceremonies. Expect fewer pictures on this blog(or no pictures) on each day I blog the results. 

Predictions may be more difficult these games. Teams could be disqualified or individual athletes disqualified from participating from testing positive for Coronavirus. 


Country medal count predictions:

USA - 43 gold, 31 silver, 37 bronze - 111 total
China - 38 gold, 34 silver 20 bronze - 92 total
Japan - 35 gold,  16 silver, 15 bronze - 66 total
ROC - 25 gold, 11 silver, 18 bronze - 54 total
Great Britain - 22 gold, 12 silver, 11 bronze - 45 total
Australia - 15 gold, 13 silver, 14 bronze - 42 total
Netherlands - 15 gold, 9 silver, 17 bronze - 41 total
Germany  - 12 gold, 11 silver, 13 bronze - 36 total
France - 10 gold, 11 silver, 12 bronze - 33 total

USA Medal predictions:

Team Gold Medals:

USA Women's Basketball
USA Women's Soccer
USA Women's Beach Volleyball - Klineman/Ross
USA Women's Water Polo
USA Women's Indoor Volleyball
USA Women's Gymnastics
USA Women's Softball

Team Silver medal:

USA Men's Basketball

Team Bronze Medal:

USA Men's Gymnastics

The USA will win 33 or more medals each in each sport - Track & Field and Swimming

USA Individual medal predictions:

Simone Biles - Gold on Vault, Gold on Floor Exercise, Gold on Uneven Bars, Bronze on Balance Beam
All Around Gold Medalist

Suni Lee - Silver on Vault, Bronze on Floor Exercise, Silver on Uneven Bars, Silver medal in All Around

Brody Malone - Bronze in Men's All Around

Ryan Crouser - Gold in men's Shot Put

Joe Kovacs - Silver in men's Shot Put

Allyson Felix - Bronze in women's 400 (Shaunae Miller-Uibo wins Gold)

Emma Coburn - Bronze in women's 3000M steeplechase

Trayvon Bromell - Gold in men's 100

Ronnie Baker - Silver in men's 100

Athing Mu - Bronze in women's 800

Gabby Thomas - Gold in women's 200

Noah Lyles - Silver in men's 200

Erriyon Knighton - Gold in men's 200

Keni Harrison - Gold in women's 100 hurdles

Sydney McLaughlin - Gold in women's 400 hurdles

Dalilah Muhammad - Silver in women's 400 hurdles

Grant Holloway - Gold in men's 110 hurdles

Rai Benjamin - Silver in men's 400 hurdles (Karsten Warholm wins gold)

Matthew Centrowicz - Bronze in men's 1500

Sam Kendricks - Silver in men's pole vault (Armand Duplantis wins gold)

Michael Norman - Silver in men's 400

Krysta Palmer/Alison Gibson - Bronze in women's 3M Springboard Synchro

Andrew Cobobianco/Michael Hixon - Bronze in men's 3M Springboard Synchro

Krysta Palmer - Bronze in women's 3M Springboard

Tyler Downs - Silver in men's 3M Springboard

Delaney Schnell - Bronze in women's 10M Platform

Caeleb Dressel - Gold in men's 100 freestyle, men's 50 freestyle and men's 100 butterfly- 3 Individual event golds plus relays

Katie Ledecky - Gold in women's 800 freestyle, women's 1500 freestyle, women's 400 freestyle and women's 200 freestyle - 4 individual event golds plus relays

Lily King - Gold in women's 200 breaststroke

Other USA swimming medalists:

Ryan Murphy
Michael Andrew
Hali Flickinger
Torri Huske
Allison Schmitt
Chase Kalisz
Olivia Smoiga
Townley Haas
Abbey Weitzeil
Annie Lazor
Regan Smith
Simone Manuel
Kieran Smith

Other USA Medalists:

USA men's wrestling - Kyle Snyder

USA women's wrestling - Helen Maroulis and Adeline Gray


These predictions are based on the fact they will compete and not be disqualified by Covid 19.

4 days until the opening ceremony!

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