Going for GoldChina bids to make a great leap forward in the 2008 Olympic Games and Simon Noble assesses the medals table as the clock counts down.
The number eight holds special status in Chinese culture due to its close association with good fortune, but nothing is being left to chance by the organisers in the run-up to the event on August 8.
Punters interested in gambling on the 16-day sporting extravaganza—featuring 302 events across 28 disciplines—should show a similar attention to detail in choosing the right bookmaker to place bets, as the hosts have in their preparations. Simply put, if you want more profit from betting on the Olympics, use a low-commission online bookie like PinnacleSports.com, who’ll offer up to 60 percent better odds than traditional bookmakers.
The Olympics haven’t traditionally been considered a staple betting medium. However, in an increasingly competitive industry, bookmakers’ markets are continually expanding into new territories. There will undoubtedly be a multitude of patriotic specials to entice novice punters and the universal popularity of the Olympics, but such bets generally offer poor value. Serious punters would do well to do their own research and focus on two-way bets, the most obvious prior to the Olympics centring on the medals table.
The important point for punters to understand about the medals table is that rankings are sorted by number of gold, and only when tied, do silver medals (or if necessary, bronze) come into consideration. The message is clear—it’s all about the gold.
The Chinese know the world is watching and they’ll want the view to be memorable. The expectation of flawless organisation must be matched by success in competition. China has tried to shake off an inferiority complex for decades, so triumph as hosts is imperative.
Recuperated
China was once known in sporting circles as the ‘Sick Man of East Asia’, sending just a single athlete to the Los Angeles games on its debut in 1932. How times have changed. Helped by an unprecedented economic boom and an unrivalled approach to the science of winning, China has high hopes of making the psychological breakthrough of coming first in the medals table. This would provide a hugely symbolic achievement for a nation ambitious to become the strongest in political, military and industrial terms.
China’s ultimate aim is to dislodge the Americans from the top of the medals table, a position the US have held since the 1996 Atlanta Games where China ranked fourth behind Germany and Russia. Since then China has been steadily improving, jumping to third behind the Russians in 2000, while in Athens four years ago, they continued their improvement, and moved within four gold medals of the US in second overall position. All preparations have been focused on making the symbolic ‘great leap forward’ to No.1 in Beijing. Home status and the extraordinary level of preparation are expected to help China leap-frog the US.
Italian Olympic official, Luciano Barra, is the organisations’ chief medal statistician. In his final prediction for Beijing he made last December, he said the USA—with 98 medals and 47 gold—would stay ahead of China with 89 overall medals and 38 gold (Russia in third with 88 medals and 32 gold). Barra is very well respected after making similar forecasts for several previous Games. He bases his predictions on the most recent World Championships or equivalent but punters should be aware that Barra’s accuracy hasn’t always been spot on. Barra underestimated the US medal haul in Athens by 30, and overstated China’s success by eight.
The Americans have downplayed their chances, saying that the Chinese have outspent them, and will benefit from a huge territorial advantage. Punters, however, shouldn’t read too much into this posturing.
Other predictions paint a different picture. Research undertaken by Sheffield Hallam University suggests China will win 46 Gold medals. Professor Simon Shibli analysed past Olympic performance, China's record in turning bronze and silver medals into gold ones, and recent success on the international stage to reach his conclusions. Shibli estimated the value of home support and hugely accelerated training system at seven gold medals, added to 39.
But China has been tainted by accusations of doping. However, most observers feel China has been trying to clean up its image particularly after the humiliation of the 2000 Olympics in Sydney, when the Chinese authorities withdrew 27 athletes from their team after they failed last-minute blood tests.
In recent years, foreign coaches have been employed to speed up progress in sports where there simply isn’t the know-how, and the numbers speak for themselves. At the Sydney Games in 2000, China won 28 gold medals, moving up to third in the rankings. Four years ago in Athens, China’s gold haul reached 32, including Liu Xiang’s 110 metre hurdles medal, the second ever podium finish for a Chinese male athlete in the track and field. Only the US—with 35 golds—did better.
In Their Sites
China has left no stone unturned in its quest to rule the medals table, realising its limitations, and choosing to focus on those areas it sees as winnable, rather than simply setting out to beat everyone at anything. The Chinese Sports Ministry is realistic enough to know that with an extremely poor record in track and field events, they aren’t likely to win gold in the 100 metres anytime soon.
China has made a science out of targeting winnable gold medals, while accepting that it will likely fill fewer silver and bronze podium positions. This is seen as an acceptable compromise in the single-minded pursuit of their goal. There should be few doubts over China’s chances of grabbing gold in table tennis, diving, badminton and women’s weightlifting (traditionally very strong disciplines), whereas the US are strong in the pool with 12 golds in Athens and eight from track and field.
It’s estimated that there are more than 3,200 Chinese in full-time training, twice the number who prepared for Athens and five times more than will be in China's 2008 team, which illustrates the determination to field only the very best medal chances. New games such as softball and beach volleyball were introduced and funded purely because they offered the possibility of medals. Women's events were targeted, as the path to success was seen to be easier. Athletes were brought in from other sports to create 'instant' national teams that went straight into full-time training.
The betting at Pinnacle has China and the US neck-and-neck for the aggregate of podium of finishes, one of a huge range of head-to-head markets especially put together for the Olympics. Alongside an obsessive determination to succeed, the Chinese are also prodigious gamblers. In an unprecedented move to thwart any illegal gambling or match-fixing, the IOC announced they have set up a special unit to check for suspicious betting patterns during the Games. IOC president Jacques Rogge said that agreements have been signed with major betting companies for the first time to monitor any irregular gambling, which should demonstrate that despite the ‘One World, One Dream’ slogan, the Olympics are now a serious betting medium.
|
