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) |