2012 Olympics 
/ Ralph Ellis / 27 July 2011 / Leave a Comment 
An aerial view of the London 2012 stadium where the track and field events will take place
"A decent bet now could be a reason to be waving the flag in front of the telly."
The London 2012 Olympics get underway a year today and Ralph Ellis believes that British chances of medals are on the increase...
If, like me, you're still sulking about not getting any tickets, it's been hard to get excited about the Olympics. We had a whole long weekend in London planned around watching cycling, athletics, table tennis, badminton and tennis and I'd put the best part of a grand aside to pay for it all. The only person who finished up happy with Seb Coe's curious ballot system was my bank manager.
Today it's starting to feel a bit different, though. We're exactly a year away from the opening ceremony, the Breakfast TV shows were full of inspiring pictures of the swimming pool (sorry, aquatics centre), and many of the papers are carrying Olympic coverage. The Daily Mail's 16-page supplement is especially good.
But while that's all well and good for some reading over coffee and biscuits, the key question for us is whether it offers any decent prospect of a winning bet. And the answer seems to be a resounding 'Yes', if you look at Betfair's market on the number of gold medals that Great Britain's team can hope to collect.
The early market makes less than 19 favourite at between [3.3] and [3.95] and I reckon the best bet at this early stage is to lay it. The Mail's experts have helpfully gone through the Games event by event listing the potential medal haul - and it comes up with a total of 70, which covers everything from archery and athletics through to weightlifting and wrestling.
You'd think less than a third of those would be gold, which would support the bet low theory. But it doesn't take into account the impact of a home crowd on performers who will spend the next year focused on just one goal. The stampede for tickets might have been bad news for those of us who missed out, but it will be good news for the home competitors who can look forward to being cheered on by massive crowds to hit the heights.
Everywhere you look there is steady improvement. In athletics, chief coach Charles van Commenee took over a failing team in 2009 and has brought drastic change. His draconian methods might have upset a few, but this is a man who believes in the principle of no gain without pain. And the impact he's having was shown last week when Mo Farah smashed the European record to go to the top of the world rankings in the 10,000 metres.
The Dutchman, who memorably guided Denise Lewis to Olympic gold and then called Kelly Sotherton a wimp for only achieving silver, thinks he has 15 medal contenders at the moment and will have more in a year's time. And if that progress is shared across other sports we could comfortably achieve 19 golds or better.
Tick the boxes in steady improvement in cycling where Mark Cavendish has just won a green jersey, and sailing where in several events the only question is which Briton wins, through rowing where we could easily beat the two golds from Beijing. I'd even give Andy Murray chances in the tennis with a reduced field from a normal Wimbledon tournament because there's only two contestants per country.
Ok, so come this time next year I'll still be sulking about not having tickets. But at least a decent bet now could be a reason to be waving the flag in front of the telly.
Five things you might not know about Charles van Commenee
1. Born June 1958 in Amsterdam, and grew up in the tough inner city area of Osdorp. Father Otto worked in a heavy industry factory. Mother Ineke was a descendant of Indonesian immigrants
2. He was a promising club runner at 200m and also competed in the decathlon before a hamstring injury finished any hope of a career. He started coaching looking after some local kids while he was doing a degree in physical education
3. After a year in the army doing national service he took up coaching full time and progressed to be the Dutch javelin coach, and by 1991 for all throwing and combined events - the job that was his first for the UK in 2001
4. He's an Ajax football fan
5. He turned down the position of UK performance director in 2004 to take the same job with Holland - and returned from Beijing with his country's highest ever medal haul
An Olympics in London without something going wrong? It doesn't sound very British to Dan Fitch, who has unearthed a host of past Olympics disasters....
No comments:
Post a Comment