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Sports Illustrated Medal Picks


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Well in my view I don't see anyone breaking the 100 medal plateau this time. I could definitely see the overall medal winner, be it China or the U.S. with between 80-90 medals, and given the overall competitive balance, we'll see more nations than ever before win at least 1 medal.

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I wonder, if the U.S. breaks 100 again as they did in Athens if my post announcing it will be taken down as it was in '04 due to technical difficulties?

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They've got one wrong already and it's a big blow to our hopes in boxing, as Frankie Gavin has been forced to pull out. Apparently, he hasn't made the weight. Why this hasn't been dealt with before now, especially given that it appears to have been a problem for some time, I can only speculate.

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I can't honestly believe that we will finish ahead of Germany this time round. By the time we get to London, maybe, but I just don't see it in Beijing. Why the negativity?

its goethe, he is always pessimistic. Hungary is only going to win 17 to 20 medals, no way Germany is lower than that, disappointment for the DOC would be 40 medals.

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You are allowed to call me pessimistic. Maybe you are right. You all know the medal table. One gold medal is more worth than 30 silver medals. We will win more medals in total than HUN, NED, JPN and maybe ITA, FRA and GBR, but we will struggle to win many gold medals.

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You are allowed to call me pessimistic. Maybe you are right. You all know the medal table. One gold medal is more worth than 30 silver medals. We will win more medals in total than HUN, NED, JPN and maybe ITA, FRA and GBR, but we will struggle to win many gold medals.

With Italy's great performances so far maybe, but Hungary has weakened considerably in the main sport, canoe/kayaking. Though Germany's rowing program hasn't produced a lot of great results right now.

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In terms of Great Britain, I think many in the media and the sports authorities (including the rest of the world) have underestimated our chances. I think we could possibly win as many as 15-20 Golds. If we get 20, that will be as many as the last 2 Olympics combined. I know a lot of people will put it down to the fact that we are hosting next etc, but a lot of this will not have happened over night so to speak. The funding has been there for several years. Take cycling for example, we are likely to do better than at the Athens Olympics (though not as well as at the World Championships). This has been coming on for over a decade., It was easy to see that all the hard work behind the athletes was paying off!

My only problem is, that if good luck etc goes with us, along with the athletes hard work, and we convert the majority of our medal chances, we may have peaked too early and made life difficult for ourselves come 2012! We'll see. I really want us to be the top European nation but we will probably come after Russia. If we can beat Italy, France and Germany this time round, then it will be a highly successful Olympics. Even better still - beating Australia!

Edited by BethnalGreen
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In terms of Great Britain, I think many in the media and the sports authorities (including the rest of the world) have underestimated our chances. I think we could possibly win as many as 15-20 Golds. If we get 20, that will be as many as the last 2 Olympics combined. I know a lot of people will put it down to the fact that we are hosting next etc, but a lot of this will not have happened over night so to speak. The funding has been there for several years. Take cycling for example, we are likely to do better than at the Athens Olympics (though not as well as at the World Championships). This has been coming on for over a decade., It was easy to see that all the hard work behind the athletes was paying off!

My only problem is, that if good luck etc goes with us, along with the athletes hard work, and we convert the majority of our medal chances, we may have peaked too early and made life difficult for ourselves come 2012! We'll see. I really want us to be the top European nation but we will probably come after Russia. If we can beat Italy, France and Germany this time round, then it will be a highly successful Olympics. Even better still - beating Australia!

It's good to see Britain shaping up so well, Beth. At two golds apiece it's already shaping up as a good duel between the UK and Australia. So who'll win the Olympic Ashes?

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  • 3 weeks later...

And here's the evaluation of the SI Medal Picks for Germany in Beijing:

Athletics

Women's High Jump – Ariane Friedrich (Silver) wrong; Friedrich won no medal

Women's Javelin Throw – Christina Obergföll (Silver) fairly wrong; Obergföll won bronze actually

Women's Shot Put – Nadine Kleinert (Bronze) wrong; Kleinert won no medal

Canoe/Kayak

Men's C1 500 metres – Andreas Dittmer (Gold) wrong; Dittmer won no medal

Men's C2 500 metres – Christian Gille & Tomasz Wylenzek (Bronze) correct

Men's K1 500 metres – Jonas Ems (Bronze) wrong; Ems won no medal

Men's K2 500 metres – Ronald Rauhe & Tim Wieskötter (Silver) correct

Men's C1 1,000 metres – Andreas Dittmer (Bronze) wrong; Dittmer won no medal

Men's C2 1,000 metres – Christian Gille & Tomasz Wylenzek (Gold) fairly wrong; they won silver actually

Men's K4 1,000 metres – Germany (Silver) fairly wrong; they won bronze actually

Women's K1 500 metres – Katrin Wagner-Augustin (Silver) fairly wrong; Wagner-Augustin won bronze actually

Women's K2 500 metres – Fanny Fischer & Nicole Reinhardt (Gold) wrong; both won no medal in this event

Women's K4 500 metres – Germany (Gold) correct

Men's K1 Slalom – Alexander Grimm (Silver) fairly wrong; Grimm won gold actually

Women's K1 Slalom – Jennifer Bongardt (Silver) wrong; Bongardt won no medal

Cycling

Men's Team Sprint – Germany (Bronze) correct

Women's Individual time trial (road) – Judith Arndt (Silver) wrong; Arndt won no medal

Women's Individual time trial (road) – Hanka Kupfernagel (Bronze) wrong; Kupfernagel won no medal

Women's Road race – Judith Arndt (Gold) wrong; Arndt won no medal

Diving

Men's 10 metres platform – Sascha Klein (Gold) wrong; Klein won no medal in this event

Equestrian

Individual dressage – Isabell Werth (Silver) correct

Team dressage – Germany (Silver) fairly wrong; they won gold actually

Individual jumping – Meredith Michaels-Beerbaum (Gold) wrong; Michaels-Beerbaum won no medal

Team jumping – Germany (Gold) wrong; they won no medal

Fencing

Men's Individual foil – Peter Joppich (Gold) wrong; Joppich won no medal

Men's Individual sabre – Nicolas Limbach (Bronze) wrong; Limbach won no medal

Women's Individual épée – Britta Heidemann (Silver) fairly wrong; Heidemann won gold actually

Football

Women – Germany (Gold) fairly wrong; they won bronze actually

Gymnastics

Men's Horizontal bar – Fabian Hambüchen (Gold) fairly wrong; Hambüchen won bronze actually

Men's Individual all-around – Fabian Hambüchen (Silver) wrong; Hambüchen won no medal in this event

Handball

Men – Germany (Silver) wrong; they won no medal

Women – Germany (Bronze) wrong; they won no medal

Hockey

Men – Germany (Silver) fairly wrong; they won gold actually

Women – Germany (Bronze) wrong; they won no medal

Judo

Women's -52 kg – Romi Tarangul (Bronze) wrong; Tarangul won no medal

Women's -78 kg – Heide Wollert (Bronze) wrong; Wollert won no medal

Rowing

Women's Double Sculls – Ann-Kathrin Thiele & Christiane Huth (Bronze) fairly wrong; they won silver actually

Women's Quadruple Sculls – Germany (Bronze) correct

Shooting

Men's 25 metres rapid fire pistol – Ralf Schumann (Gold) fairly wrong; Schumann won silver actually

Men's 25 metres rapid fire pistol – Christian Reitz (Silver) fairly wrong; Reitz won bronze actually

Men's 50 metres rifle 3 positions – Maik Eckhardt (Bronze) wrong; Eckhardt won no medal

Women's 10 metres air rifle – Sonja Pfeilschifter (Gold) wrong; Pfeilschifter won no medal

Swimming

Men's 10 km marathon – Thomas Lurz (Gold) fairly wrong; Thomas Lurz won bronze actually

Women's 100 metres freestyle – Britta Steffen (Silver) fairly wrong; Steffen won gold actually

Women's 200 metres freestyle – Annika Lurz (Silver) wrong; Annika Lurz won no medal

Table Tennis

Men's Team – Germany (Bronze) fairly wrong; they won silver actually

Taekwondo

Men's -58 kg – Levent Tuncat (Bronze) wrong; Tuncat won no medal

Weightlifting

Men's 105 kg+ – Matthias Steiner (Bronze) fairly wrong; Steiner won gold actually

So only six of SI's 48 medal picks for Germany were correct. 25 of the picks were even completely wrong. And Germany fell short of SI's prediction: In fact, it only won 41 and not 48 medals. But it won two gold medals more than predicted.

Additionally, SI didn't pick the following 18 German medals at all:

Ditte Kotzian & Heike Fischer – Bronze in women's 3 m springboard synchronised diving

Patrick Hausding & Sascha Klein – Silver in men's 10 m platform synchronised diving

Ole Bischof – Gold in men's Judo -81 kg

The eventing team – Gold

Hinrich Romeike – Gold in the individual eventing (equestrian)

Benjamin Kleibrink – Gold in men's individual foil (fencing)

Munkhbayar Dorjsuren – Bronze in women's 25 m pistol (shooting)

Mirko Englich – Silver in men's greco-roman wrestling -84 kg

Christine Brinker – Bronze in women's skeet (shooting)

Roger Kluge – Silver in men's point race (track cycling)

Britta Steffen – Gold in women's 50 m freestyle (swimming)

Oksana Chusovitina – Silver in women's vault (gymnastics)

Jan Peter Peckolt & Hannes Peckolt – Bronze in the 49er (sailing)

Jan Frodeno – Gold in men's triathlon

Heike Kemmer – Bronze in the individual dressage (equestrian)

Martin Hollstein & Christian Ihle – Gold in men's K2 1,000 metres (canoe/kayak)

Lena Schöneborn – Gold in women's modern pentathlon

Sabine Spitz – Gold in women's mountain bike cross country

So all in all: Forget those SI medal picks! They are a rough guess at best, but actually pretty useless for reliable predictions.

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My only problem is, that if good luck etc goes with us, along with the athletes hard work, and we convert the majority of our medal chances, we may have peaked too early and made life difficult for ourselves come 2012! We'll see. I really want us to be the top European nation but we will probably come after Russia. If we can beat Italy, France and Germany this time round, then it will be a highly successful Olympics. Even better still - beating Australia!

You'll have the Home Court Advantage come 2012, i.e., the judges. line officials, peeing room custodians and doping lab attendants, will all be locals. ;) Make the most use of it.

I won't tell. B):D

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