The Paris 2024 Olympics officially gets underway on Saturday when the French capital plays host to a number of sports getting up and running with plenty of medals up for grabs and spots deeper in the events on the line throughout the day.
Olympics punting is getting more and more popular with each games and pretty much every sport and the majority of events within each one have been priced up so we should be in for an excellent two weeks of betting action.
Gold Medal Events
- Diving
- Fencing
- Judo
- Road Cycling
- Rugby Sevens
- Shooting
- Swimming
Other Sports
Along with the sports above where there are gold medals being won on Saturday, plenty of other sports are taking place in Paris. We’ve already covered the men’s football and tennis elsewhere but also on show are the likes of badminton, water polo, boxing and canoeing which all get up and running as do the basketball, hockey, equestrian, gymnastics, rowing, surfing, table tennis and the beach volleyball and indoor volleyball.
Cycling
The men’s and women’s time trial takes place on the Parisian roads on Saturday and the competitors are going to encounter wet surfaces which could make for a tricky day on the bike. The women’s race is due to take place deep in the heavy rain on Saturday so rather than fall foul to the conditions we are going to leave that and head to the men’s race where the rain might well relent by the time the leading contenders take to the tarmac.
The men’s race looks to be a three-horse racing between the British rider Josh Tarling who is the European champion, the former world champion Filippo Ganna and the winner of the first time trial at the Tour de France in Remco Evenepoel. The latter will be the last off the ramp but he is the only one of the three who rode the Tour de France and given that only finished six days ago that might not be the best preparation. The other two could be rusty but the conditions are going to level this out a bit. It is Ganna that I like in this race. Tarling is improving fast but he broke a bone in his knee in April and although he raced the Dauphine in June these conditions might just see him ease up by even 1%. Ganna has twice been the world champion and he was fifth in this race in Tokyo. The Ineos rider won the Italian time trial earlier in the year and the time trial at the Giro and I think he’s the value pick to land the elusive Olympic gold.
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Rugby Sevens
It is the final day of the men’s Rugby Sevens event at the Stade de France where all eyes will be on the host nation France to see if they can justify the decision of Antoine Dupont to switch from the 15 man game to sevens to attempt to land an Olympic gold medal. France will go up against South Africa in the first semi-final while the defending champions Fiji will face Australia in the second semi-final. You would imagine it will be a France vs Fiji final which could be a great spectacle on Saturday evening.
There isn’t much value in the medal matches on Saturday but the wooden spoon battle brings about a bet where Uruguay are 14 point favourites to get the better of Japan, a line I think the South American side can cover. Japan have played four matches at these games and have conceded 40 points in each of them hence why they are in this match. Uruguay haven’t had the competition they would have liked but in the group stage they led Fiji, France and USA in the group stage and again in the 9-12th placed semi-final but they couldn’t maintain it against better sides on each occasion. Japan aren’t a great side though. While they are shipping points, they are also struggling to score, putting up more than one try in just the one match and the second of those came well after the hooter. Uruguay should win this going away.
Swimming
Moving into the evening action and there are four gold medals to be won, in the men’s and women’s 400m freestyle finals as well as the two 4x100m freestyle relays. There are warm favourites in both of the relays who look unopposable after the heats in the morning session while the gold in the men’s 400m final looks to be pretty much around the neck of Lukas Martens but the women’s race could well get interesting as the legendary Katie Ledecky goes for a second Olympic title while the defending champion Ariarne Titmus is the odds on favourite to successfully defend the crown.
There are four runners for this title and there was just 0.46s between the quartet in the morning heats, albeit the main two raced in a different semi-final to Summer McIntosh and Erika Fairweather. Despite that though, the 5/1 on McIntosh to upstage the big two could be value here. She has been second and fourth in the 2022 and 2023 World Championship over this distance and came home with the fastest last length of all four women in the heats and in a race where there isn’t expected to be much between anyone that might be significant. There is a chance that Titmus in particular eased down a little in the morning but even with that, at the prices the Canadian youngster is worth a bet.
Tips
Back F.Ganna to win Men’s Road Time Trial for a 2/10 stake at 3.75 with Sky Bet
Back Uruguay (-14) to beat Japan for a 3/10 stake at 1.91 with William Hill
Back them here:
Back S.McIntosh to win Women’s 400m Freestyle for a 1/10 stake at 6.00 with Boylesports
Back her here:
