Paris 2024: Playing for Gold - The Gare d'Or Café

[Oploskoffie]

Mesdames et Messieurs, ladies and gentlemen... Welcome to the Gare d'Or Café!

Located somewhere between the Boulevard Suchet and the Quai de la Pie, Paris, this is the official hangout for the Paris 2024: Playing for Gold competition. This is where you discuss the intricacies of épée team fencing. Where you come to drown your sorrows when even the most obvious picks have failed and Kiribati has, again, swooped in for the gold. Where the drinks are safer than the water for the open water swimming events and the other contestants (may) cheer you on, in true Olympic spirit

So, have fun, mingle, and keep an eye on the How it works topic for more spotlights on the other non-tennis events!

[Oploskoffie]

With the competition now underway, here are some of the numbers

- For the first edition of this new competition we have twelve TAT'ers taking part, which means there is a total of 432 medal position predictions;

- Across all sports, 33 countries are resprested;

- There is one unanimous pick: Poland to win the gold in the tennis women's singles (go Iga!);

- The tennis mixed doubles has the most diverse spread, with 11 countries in total and the USA as the most like to medal with 8 picks;

- Amongst the countries only picked once are Hong Kong (fencing), Ivory Coast (women's 200 metres track), South Africa (men's 100 metres track) and Slovakia (men's C1 canoe slalom);

- There are several events where the podium positions will become the tie-breakers; the track events mostly have Jamaica and the USA picks while the women's swimming 100 metres backstroke is split three ways between Australia, Canada and the USA, bar a lone pick for Germany

[ponchi101]

Yes, Iga seems to be the cinch.
Will not be unhappy if we all miss that gold.
Good breakdown, Oploskoffie

[ponchi101]

It took me a while to find the page within the Olympic's website where you can find results by sports:
https://olympics.com/en/paris-2024/sports

I have no idea when anything is being held but this way we can get an idea of our medal count.

[Fastbackss]

This is too hard to score; we should probably call it after 3 events...

[ponchi101]

Oploskoffie has to crunch the numbers.
I trust him.
(A little )

[Oploskoffie]

I've crunched some numbers, but someone else is re-crunching them, just to be sure. New scoring system 'n all that

Also, the partial trust is very much appreciated

[Oploskoffie]

This is too hard to score; we should probably call it after 3 events...

You obviously have noooooo idea of where you currently (probably) sit in the rankings then

Honestly, if everything checks out for the first three scored events, I'm already needing some miracles going forwards

[patrick]

If I calculated my numbers correctly, I have 36 points through the first 3 events

[Oploskoffie]

If I calculated my numbers correctly, I have 36 points through the first 3 events

Agreed

[Oploskoffie]

Meanwhile, in Olympic news related to this contest, Sifan Hassan (Netherlands) has opted to run the 5.000 metres, 10.000 metres AND... marathon She's aiming to win a medal in all three events, but has indicated that winning the marathon would be "the dream". It's a rare combination of events, and only one other athlete has ever been (very) succesful when doing so: Czechoslovakian Emil Zatopek won gold in all three back in 1952

For Hassan personally, it means running the 5.000 metres series this Friday, the final on Monday, then the 10.000 metres next week Friday evening and the marathon on the closing day of the Olympics

[Oploskoffie]

Biles. Van Rouwendaal. McLaughlin-Nevrone. Ledecky. Kipyegon. Just a couple of the names of women making history at these Olympic games. And today, Sifan Hassan added her name to that list. Dimissed as crazy for entering these three events (5K, 10K metres and marathon) that she did. Repeatedly telling reporters that the marathon "scared her" and that she'd probably overtrained at some point. But then she went and won the gold, still managing a sprint down the final stretch after what was already a challenging course with 436 metres of elevation gain.

Those of us who'd included her in our predictions hadn't dared to go beyond a bronze. And in most of the selections, it was supposed to be Ethiopia in gold and Kenya in silver, or vice versa. How has this affected the final standings? We hope to have them online very soon, but a final check of the scores is obviously a must Stay tuned!