Who's going to win "Gold, gold to Australia, gold!"

Spiro your column has just been printed in the NZ SundaystarTimes I think you have been in Aussie Aussie Aussie too long with your 17 gold medals won in cycling in Athens !!

What about in the women's, Laresmo? The Rice Hoff duel in the IMs?

Don't our rugby friends the Jappies have a decent mens swimming relay team? If its the womens medley relay, surely Aus is strong gold medal favourites?

Over here in the States some of the swim coaches are predicting the following: 50 Free - Sullivan/Weber-Gale/Bernard. 1500 - Hackett/Vanderkaay/Jensen. 4 X100 Free - US/France/Oz. 4 X 200 Free - USA/Oz/Russia. 4 X 100 Medley - US/Oz/France. Not sure if we'll have enough depth to get the silver in this last one. Surprisingly, some are tipping Ryan Lochte to beat Phelps in the 200 IM.

JAMESWM - no question the 50 and 100 are the glamor events at the Games , although the events Phelps swims will take over in importance because he'll be unbeatable in some of them and the media love a multi-medal winner. I watched Sully swim at the World's last summer and he's come on so strong. Go Sully. However, also challenging will be Dragnaya representing Croatia, Magnini (Italy) Adrian and Copeland (US). Saffers Neethling and Ferns will probably be in the mix, too. Plus very strong reps from Brazil and France. Problems is, if any of these guys get out ahead of Sully, specially in the 100, he'll have to battle their wake if he's sandwiched between them.

I wouldn't be surprised if some very macho chinese female swimmers take some medals out of the blue. The ones on special chinese herbal teas.

The cycling sprint races are always a once every 4 years novelty for me - great viewing.

One of the top US swimmers has already been booted out for drugs. I'm actually an ex-athlete but I love the Olympics swimming and it's a great sport for a statistics nut like me to follow, plus we're so good at it. And I don't mind the rugby, though we've had some ups and downs in our relationship. And yeah I love the athletics, but it doesn't get the coverage it deserves. A lot of the other sports I'm really not interested in. Cycling and rowing ok. Monty in the 50 free, Sullivan actually has 0.15-0.2 on the wimmers, which is a small but significant amount. Lezak in the 100 free is between 47.60 and 48 but Sullivan peppered the 47.50 mark a few times in a row. I do think he'll win at least one of them - things will have to click.

Good factual stuff Jameswm. I'm sure our team will give a great account of themselves. In all seriousness, I think you've really got to question whether the US swim team is clean. The US have consistently demonstrated they cannot be trusted to police their own. I'm also hoping the rowers do well - we are favourities in a class in both the mens and womens pairs event I think, and, as I said earlier, would love to see the 8's do well. Despite all the question marks about doping, I love watching the athletic track events - hopefully by the time they start in earnest we'll have 15 or 16 gold medals in the bag!

JAMESWM _ at last we know what your blog/post name stands for - JAMESWIM or James the Swim. Ypu're Welsh, huh? No wonder you know so much about rugby. The Oz women will clean up. But. Don't bet the south forty on Sully as the 50 will be decided by a finger nail and I'm told he's clipped his nails. The 100 will be decided by a slightly longer fingernail. It's too hard to handicap races when there's so little between at least four swimmers. I'll be rooting for him, and for Grant, too, but what a great shame Thorpo is no longer around and in form because this could have been the greatest rivalry of the entire Games. I saw Mike Phelps at the Worlds and he is some swimmer. He'll be the star of the show. Thrope's coach once said that his charge wasn't old enough or strong enough to pose a challenge in the 100. He would be now had he kept up. Alas.

Harry I agree on all that drug taking - what a farce. Oddly though I think Tyson Gay is clean and ditto the Jamaicans. I picked all the other dirty ones. That Korean is a rival of Hackett in the 400, not the 1500. Hackett felt the heat in our trials, but recently smashed some of his own short course records. He'd have to win at least one of his events. I just (belatedly) went through the FIFA rankings and can categorise our chances in the pool. Winning 12 in the pool is not pie in the sky stuff by any means, as we're probably favourite in about that many events) A. Unbackable favourites (90=%ers) - 4 Leisel Jones 100 breast (only an Aussie within 1.5 secs of her) Leisel Jones 200 breast (leads the world by 2 seconds) Libby Trickett/Jess Schipper 100 fly (miles in front of the others) Women's 4x100 medley (miles in front of the world in 3 of the 4 strokes) B. Solid/strong favourites (75%ers) - 3 (that's 7 gold already) Libby Trickett 50 free (clear WR and world leader) Libby Trickett 100 free (ditto) Women's 4x100 free (we have nos 1 & 3 plus 2 other strong swimmers) C. Marginal favourites (45-60%ers) - 3 (total 10 gold) Grant Hackett 1500 free (ranked 3rd on times this year but still favourite) Eamonn Sullivan 50 free (clear WR but a few guys just back) Stephanie Rice 200 IM (clear WR holder but racing against Katie Hoff) D. Not favourite but very decent chance at winning (30-45%ers) - 4 (total 14 so far) Grant Hackett 400 free (ranked top 5 but form has improved since) Jess Schipper 200 fly (top 5 close but has class and experience on her side) Eamonn Sulivan 100 free (ranked 2nd by 2/100ths) Stephanie Rice 400IM (marginally ranked 2nd but hasn't been pushed) E. Outsiders but should give it a shake (20-30%ers) - 2 (total 16) Men's 4x100 free relay (US favourites, French good, so are we) Women's 4x200 free (2nd favourites behind the Yanks) I can't see us having any chance at winning any other events, unless the US get disqualified in the men's 4x200 relay. Brenton Rickard is ranked no.2 in the world in the 200 breast, but a long way behind the Japanese guy.

A rant: I would like to see the heat go on to the Seppo's for their disgraceful cheating at the Sydney Olympics which took until the last 12 months to be revealed - Marion Jones et al. They have lost all credibility in asserting they lead the way in catching drug cheats with this track record every one of their competitors enters these games with a cloud over their heads. Whats worse I see they have picked convicted drug cheats in their team - just last month one of their swimmers (Leisels big rival I think) got busted, can you imagine the fuss and bleats that would have gone on from the US had it have been one of our lot?

Steady Jameswm while I am confident of a good showing by our lot Hackett for instance has some formidable competition in the 1500 with the Korean in particular. As I said above it will be a truly fantastic effort if he wins that one. I see the ever pragmatic John Coates is predicting a top 5 finish in the medals, which will be a great effort by our team. What a worthy flag carrier is James Tomkins. Go Australia!

I've seen some predictions that we'll only win 5 or 6 golds in the pool. Who's going to beat our women's sprint butterflyers and freestylers? Who'll beat Leisel? And Hackett? I can't really see how we can win any less than 8 in the pool alone and I'm expecting 12.

Fellas, after reading that article and all those comments, I am now pumped (even more than I was before!) to see every milli-second of our athletes perform. It gets said over and over, but god I am proud of how well we do with only 21 million. Now the challenge for me is going to be to see Aussies compete on Spanish TV. “Gold, gold to Australia, gold!”

Who's going to win gold? Certainly not Channel 7, whose coverage of Australia's first soccer match started after the game finished, with a commentator "here in Beijing" calling the match in Shanghai.

I can't see how our women aren't stronger now that they ever have been. Apart from the distance freestyles and the backstrokes, we'd have to be favourite in every event, except maybe the 4x200 free. And with the men, even after Sullivan the next 3 100 freestylers are very fast and all sub-49 I think (I just checked and Ashley Callus came 4th with 48.68, incredible depth. I just did the exercise of adding up the top 4 Aust and US times from the trials and the Yanks have us by 0.23 - it will be a cracking race). Sullivan's the fastest we've ever had and we've never had a 4th fastest that quick. Thorpe was our fastest at the last Olympics and we've got 2-3 faster than him now, one three-quarters of a second faster. Sullivan is a full half second faster than anyone in the world except that rather impressively proportioned Frenchman, so for the Yanks and others to challenge they'd need to build up a big lead. Sullivan might split 46.7 on a last leg, imagine that!! We'd need all our swimmers to be at their best of course, but I have a feeling Tricket, Hackett and Jones, for example, are in PB shape. And for those 3, PB = gold medal = world record . Rice, Schipper and Sullivan are under the heavy spotlight for the 1st time, so we're not sure how they'll cope. it was a shame an unfit Jodie Henry didn't battle away for 5th place in the 100 free at the trials, because she'd have had enough time to get in shape and be in our fastest 4 for the 4x100 free relay. But we found Melanie Schlanger and doing the time adding exercise with the Yanks, we're 1.4 seconds ahead. Our 2nd and 3rd fastest are similar, but Trickett's a full second faster than their best.

Spiro, Warren Potent is the current No.1 in 50m Prone Rifle and current Equal World Record holder - a definite medal chance to add to the shooting tally.

I'm tipping that we could go nuts in the pool and win up to half the events. Each of the men's and women's have 32 golds for grabs in the pool. The only 5 events where we aren't expected to challenge for a gold are the two backstrokes and the 200, 400 and 800 freestyles, but don't say that to 16yo Emily Seebohm or Bronte Barratt. We're favourites in almost all of the other 11 events, in some roaring (excuse the pun) favourites, like the breaststroke events and the 4x100 medley. In the men's it's Sullivan in the 50 and 100 free and Hackett in the 400 & 1500 free, plus our strong 4x100 free relay in an event where 4 or 5 teams have good claims. I'd be surprised if we even medalled in any of the other men's events, except maybe Brendan rickard in the 200 breast. Based on some lead-up times he just swam, Hackett seems to be on fire and in the form of his life. It's only a few sleeps till Sunday morning when he has the 400 free final and the luscious Stephanie Rice the 400IM final. In the athletics Spiro you forgot about Sally McLelland. She left Australia as a decent shot at the final and now lines up as a genuine medal contender, after tearing strips of our oldest national record 2 or 3 times. She's been within a yard of the top 2-3 hurdlers in the world and has been improving all season.