The 100m’s is the traditional blue ribbon Olympic event with literally millions gambled away on its outcome and this year is promising to be the same. Defending champion and world record holder, Usain Bolt, will start the 2012 games as hot favorite with bookmakers paying out as little as $1.66 for the Jamaican to win back to back titles, this is despite his failure to win the recent national championships. Second favorite will be Bolt’s fellow countryman, Yohan Blake, at $2.65 with everybody else considered as rank outsiders. But with one of the wettest summers in English history set to grip this years games it is thought that the track will be super slow and new world record out of reach. This leaves the competition wide open and suddenly $13 for Tyson Gay or $21 for Justin Gatlin doesn’t seem like such a stupid bet.
Stephanie Rice was the golden girl of the 2008 Beijing Olympics for Australia with three winners medals in the 200m Individual Medley, 400m Individual Medley and 4x200m Freestyle and she will once again start on of the favorites in the pool. But a persistent shoulder injury means that the 24 year old is lucky to have even been on the plane to London and it is a problem undoubtedly mean that her career is over once these games have finished. For the 200 IM Steph will start as the $3.75 second favorite behind Shiwen Ye from China. Even in the 400 IM Rice’s shoulder injury has cast a little doubt over her chances of retaining her title and again she will start as second favorite at $4.50 with American Elisabeth Biesel tipped for gold at $2.
The men’s tennis tournament is also going to be an interesting battle despite the fact that defending champion Rafael Nadal will be missing through injury. The 2012 Wimbledon Champion, Roger Federer, will be there though as will Britain’s Andy Murray who will be out for revenge over the Swiss master for his loss at the All England Club in June and you can get odds of $3 and $5.50 on this pair respectively. But you simply can’t right off Serbia’s Novak Djokovic who will be out to prove to the world that he really is the new dominant force in men’s tennis and he will start as the $2.50 favorite.
The so-called American Dream Team always draws a lot of attention on the basketball court when the Olympics roll around and have already been backed in to $1.12. But they are not unbeatable and in the past they succumbed to the many big egos of the NBA. So if you’re feeling brave a bet on the Spanish at $7or $26 for the Russians could be the way to go.
