Olympic Men’s Medal Predictions #1

Eliud Kipchoge is the only individual Rio running event winner tagged to repeat as a gold medalist in Tokyo. (MARK SHEARMAN)

IT’S VERY EARLY IN THE YEAR to be going out on a limb to attempt to forecast what’s going to happen in Tokyo this summer, but here we are with our first men’s medal picks of the year.

At this point, our crystal ball is projecting a healthy medal haul for the U.S.: 17 medals total, with 8 golds, 6 silvers and 3 bronzes. That’s very comparable to how things were distributed in Rio, where Team USA had 16 total medals, with 7 golds, 5 silvers and 4 bronzes.

Only 3 of the Rio winners are currently charted to repeat atop the podium: Eliud Kipchoge in the marathon, the U.S 4×4 and Ryan Crouser in the shot.

The picks:

GOLD SILVER BRONZE
100 Trayvon Bromell (USA) Ronnie Baker (USA) Akani Simbine (South Africa)
200 Noah Lyles (USA) Kenny Bednarek (USA) Alex Quiñónez (Ecuador)
400 Steven Gardiner (Bahamas) Michael Norman (USA) Wayde van Niekerk (South Africa)
800 Donavan Brazier (USA) Wycliffe Kinyamal (Kenya) Marco Arop (Canada)
1500 Timothy Cheruiyot (Kenya) Jakob Ingebrigtsen (Norway) Jake Wightman (Great Britain)
Steeple Lemecha Girma (Ethiopia) Conseslus Kipruto (Kenya) Soufiane El Bakkali (Morocco)
5000 Jacob Kiplimo (Uganda) Joshua Cheptegei (Uganda) Selemon Barega (Ethiopia)
10,000 Joshua Cheptegei (Uganda) Jacob Kiplimo (Uganda) Yomif Kejelcha (Ethiopia)
110 Hurdles Grant Holloway (USA) Orlando Ortega (Spain) Omar McLeod (Jamaica)
400 Hurdles Karsten Warholm (Norway) Rai Benjamin (USA) Abderrahmane Samba (Qatar)
Marathon Eliud Kipchoge (Kenya) Berhanu Legesse (Ethiopia) Amos Kipruto (Kenya)
20 Walk Toshikazu Yamanishi (Japan) Kaihua Wang (China) Perseus Karlström (Sweden)
50 Walk Masatora Kawano (Japan) Matej Tóth (Slovakia) Ihor Hlavan (Ukraine)
4 x 100 United States Jamaica Great Britain
4 x 400 United States Jamaica Trinidad
High Jump Maksim Nedasekau (Belarus) Gianmarco Tamberi (Italy) Naoto Tobe (Japan)
Pole Vault Mondo Duplantis (Sweden) Sam Kendricks (USA) KC Lightfoot (USA)
Long Jump Juan Miguel Echevarría (Cuba) Tajay Gayle (Jamaica) JuVaughn Harrison (USA)
Triple Jump Will Claye (USA) Christian Taylor (USA) Hugues Fabrice Zango (Burkina Faso)
Shot Ryan Crouser (USA) Tom Walsh (New Zealand) Joe Kovacs (USA)
Discus Daniel Ståhl (Sweden) Fedrick Dacres (Jamaica) Lukas Weißhaidinger (Austria)
Hammer Bence Halász (Hungary) Wojciech Nowicki (Poland) Paweł Fajdek (Poland)
Javelin Johannes Vetter (Germany) Neeraj Chopra (India) Anderson Peters (Grenada)
Decathlon Kevin Mayer (France) Niklas Kaul (Germany) Maicel Uibo (Estonia)