There are plenty of gold medals to be won out in Rio on Monday evening. There will be a lot of Team GB interest in many of the other sports and some where the attention will be on other nations.
With the interest in the Olympics much higher since London 2012 all of the sports have been priced up and there is a chance to get involved to further increase our own interest in the many sports on offer.
Gold Medal Events
- Swimming
- Diving
- Gymnastics
- Rugby 7s
- Shooting
- Fencing
- Weightlifting
- Judo
Other Events
Along with those events with gold medals up for grabs the team events such as Hockey, Volleyball and Basketball continue on Monday while the preliminaries in sports such as Rowing, Boxing, Canoeing, Archery and Sailing also either begin or continue on what is a pretty busy day in the Olympic Park.
Swimming
There are four finals in the pool on Monday night with the gold medal being swum for in the Men’s 200m freestyle, Women’s 100m backstroke, Men’s 100m backstroke and the Women’s 100m breaststroke.
From a British point of view all eyes will be on the first of those finals – the Men’s 200m freestyle where Team GB have the reigning world champion James Guy. He qualified for the final on Sunday night albeit only just coming through as the slowest qualifier from the semi-finals but we can excuse him of that given that he had raced a couple of 400m races on Saturday.
Having the morning off will have done Guy no harm at all and while the field he goes up against is strong we’re not going to write him off as quickly as the bookmakers have done. In the final of the Men’s 400m freestyle he blazed a real trail over the first 200m but couldn’t quite hold on down the final 100. If he swims this 200 like he did that one then he can get himself among the medals even if he doesn’t land gold.
Controversial Chinese swimmer Sun Yang is the favourite after the semi-finals while Conor Dwyer and Kosuke Hagino will be eyeing up a medal, as will the hero of 2012 Chad le Clos but at 10/3 we’ll take the Brit to continue the momentum the British team have built up and land some more hardware.
Perhaps the most controversial final of the session on Monday evening will be the Women’s 100m breaststroke where the Russian Yulia Efimova will be looking to secure gold. She got an awful reception from the crowd ahead of her semi-final and as such it could be worth siding with the American girl Lillia King who was actually the fastest qualifier.
Defending champion Ruta Meilutyte has made it through to the final but she doesn’t look in her best form coming back from injury so we have this between the two semi-final winners and with no controversy weighing her down we think that King can come through.
The two backstroke finals look wide open with a number of swimmers in contention for the gold, silver and the bronze and both could go any which way so we’ll avoid those and focus on the other two finals for our bets.
Gymnastics
It is the final of the Men’s Team event on Monday night with Great Britain looking to build on their bronze medal from back in London. China were the best scorers in qualifying but it is Japan who go into the final as the favourites to claim the gold.
Bookmakers have the Brits 8/1 to win gold which might well be beyond them but they will be confident of a medal. Based on qualifying the two Asian nations are likely to battle it out for the gold. China could be value but we don’t have a strong opinion either way so we’ll leave this one alone and see if we can take anything out of the final to use later in the week.
Diving
Team GB star Tom Daley hits the diving board for the first time on Monday evening when he joins up with partner Daniel Goodfellow in an eight pair final. The Chinese duo of Chen Aisen and Lin Yue look like certainties for the gold but the battle for the medals in behind them looks like it could be fierce.
The coverage will focus around the British duo but it is actually the German pairing of Sascha Klein and Patrick Hausding who won the European title in London where they beat Daley and Goodfellow by a solitary point and yet the British pair are shorter in the betting than the German one.
The Mexican pair of Ivan Garcia and German Sanchez aren’t without a chance of medalling either so this is set to be a competitive competition behind the Chinese. The German pair are the European champions, they were world champions in 2013 in Barcelona and were silver medallists at the Beijing Olympics and at 5/4 they look overpriced for a medal.
Rugby 7s
The Women’s Rugby 7s are down to the semi-final stage with Australia taking on Canada in the opening semi-final before Great Britain go up against New Zealand in the second semi. Everything points towards an Australia vs NZ final and the odds are reflective of that so there isn’t a bet we like in this event.
Hockey
Both the men’s and women’s hockey tournaments continue deep into the night in Rio and Team GBs women play their second match against India with a 10pm kick off UK time. Team GB had a good win over Australia in their first match while India could only draw with Japan.
As a result of that Great Britain are very warm favourites to win the match and in terms of a handicap they have to give up a 2.5 goal start. That is a goal too many for comfort for us so we will leave it but hope that Britain can make it two wins from two.
Tips
Back J.Guy to win a medal in Men’s 200m freestyle for a 2/10 stake at 4.33 with Skybet
WON – Back L.King to win Women’s 100m breaststroke for a 3/10 stake at 2.10 with Skybet
Back Germany to win a medal in Men’s 10m Synchronised Diving for a 4/10 stake at 2.25 with Skybet
Back them here:
