After Team USA Swimming's huge splash over the first week of the 2020 Tokyo Olympics, the U.S. track and field team has a lot of catching up to do in Week 2. USA Swimming will bring home 30 medals (11 gold) from Olympics 2020, and while USA Track and Field isn't as dominant, it has plenty of athletes among the favorites in their events.
The Americans' top options for gold on the track in upcoming events might be Sydney McLaughlin and Dalilah Muhammad. Both won their heats Saturday and are the favorites in the women's 400-meter hurdles, with semifinals running Monday at 6:25 a.m. ET. In the women's 100 hurdles, Team USA runner Kendra Harrison is expected to be in Sunday night's final (10:50 p.m. ET), and she is the second favorite. (To keep up with how the Americans are faring at Olympics 2020, check out our medal tracker)
William Hill Sportsbook lists McLaughlin as the -275 favorite for the 400 hurdles in its latest 2020 Tokyo Olympic track odds, with Muhammad the +275 second choice. Harrison is listed at +250, behind Puerto Rico's Jasmine Camacho-Quinn (-175) in the 100 hurdles.
The Americans also have high hopes in the field events. Valarie Allman enters Monday's women's discus final (7 a.m. ET) as the top seed and -175 favorite after a throw of 66.42 meters in qualifying. Team USA's Katie Nageotte is the slight favorite at +220 in a wide-open women's pole vault field (qualifying Monday at 6:20 a.m.), and American Rudy Winkler (+275) is the second choice in the men's hammer throw (qualifying Sunday at 8 p.m.). (Head over to our 2021 Olympics page for more analysis and updates)
Before you lock in any 2020 Tokyo Olympics picks or make your Tokyo 2020 predictions, you need to see what SportsLine Olympics expert Mike Tierney is saying.
A national sportswriter whose work appears in The New York Times and Los Angeles Times, Tierney has covered nine Olympic Games in person. In the past two Olympic Games, his advice helped those who followed him cash in big, and he also has been rolling on Tokyo 2020 picks!
Tierney kicked off his Olympics 2020 picks by taking Norway's Kristian Blummenfelt (+600) as his pick to win gold in Sunday's men's triathlon, and the 27-year-old ran away with the event. He also picked Chinese legend Long Ma (+163) to win the men's table tennis final over ITTF world No. 1 Fan Zhendong and called Japan (+100) upsetting Team USA in the softball final.
The uncanny expert also is on a strong run in basketball. He took the French men at +12.5 against the USA before they won outright to hand the Americans their first Olympic loss since 2004. But he also took Team USA Men's Basketball to cover at -22.5 before it crushed the Czech Republic 114-89 to cash that bet.
"France's defense is equipped to handle the United States' limited offensive upside," Tierney told SportsLine before Team USA's opener. The Americans scored just 76 points to lose by seven and snap their 25-game Olympics win streak.
At the Pyeongchang Winter Olympics in 2018, he nailed Suzanne Schulting (+2500) of the Netherlands and Norway's Havard Lorentzen (+800) to triumph in speed skating and the USA's Mikaela Shiffrin (+185) to win the giant slalom. Tierney also took the Under (10.5) on the Americans' gold-medal count, and that also cashed as the USA came in with nine.
And at the Rio 2016 Summer Games, Tierney told readers to bet Over on Team USA's gold medal count (41.5) and Over on Team USA's overall medal count (102.5). The result? 46 golds, 121 medals and two easy cashes. Anyone who followed Tierney's advice cashed in huge!
Now, Tierney has been studying the 2020 Olympics event schedule and digging down into the individual sports. He has released two CONFIDENT best bets, with one of them paying nearly 3-1!
One shocker: Tierney is fading hammer throw favorite Pawel Fajdek of Poland! The big man is a four-time world champion, but he also is 36 years old and has been at this for two-thirds of his life. He doesn't have a good track record at the Olympic Games, failing even to register a mark at London 2012 and falling short of the final in Rio. He has never won a Summer Games medal, and Tierney doesn't believe that will change at Tokyo 2020.
Instead, Tierney has honed in on an athlete who has been to the Summer Games before and is having a monster season. He's also much younger and on an upward trajectory. This thrower has special motivation to win gold, and he could pull off the huge upset in the men's hammer throw final! The Olympics expert has broken down the events, and today he has released two CONFIDENT picks, including one that would pay almost 3-1!
Tierney's best bets have offered great value, and you ABSOLUTELY need to see the expert's analysis and who he is backing before you make any 2020 Olympics picks or Tokyo 2020 swimming predictions of your own.
Who will win the 2020 Olympics men's hammer throw? And which other high-value picks are must-backs? ... Join SportsLine now to get Mike Tierney's best bets for the Tokyo Summer Olympics, all from the renowned sportswriter who's covered nine Olympics in person and cashed big in both 2016 and '18!!
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