Rank The 2012 US Mid-d & Distance Track & Field Olympians 1-35 On Their Odds of Medalling in London

I'd wanted to write a script to compute this kind of stuff for a while. This gave me a good excuse.

Uceny has ZERO chance of medaling. Do your homework folks. I will check back after the 1500 prelims. PLEASE DO NOT ACT SHOCKED.

Amy and Allistar it is late, go to bed.

After declaring Lomong a medal contender when he ran Stanford, you now give him a 2% chance. I do understand the sport, now.

Linsanity wrote:

After declaring Lomong a medal contender when he ran Stanford, you now give him a 2% chance. I do understand the sport, now.

a LOT has happened since then. Would you really like to argue that he has a higher chance than that?

Frommy, The Amerian women including Molly will be lucky if they don't get lapped!...and some probably will.

PS..Molly hasn't looked that good this year.

I follow the sport very closely. Please explain how growing up poor in a war-torn nation gave Meb an advantage over Ryan Hall who has a significantly better PR. Or Albert Salazar. Your comments are ignorant and your classification scheme disrespectful.

Growing up in a poor war-torn nation gives him an advantage over hall because all they know is running. It's their way to get out of the country. It's engrained in them psychologically from a young age that running is the way to make a living.

LetsRun.com wrote:

But if you don't get the fact that being African born - being of East African descent - is an advantage in distance running then you don't follow the sport very closely.

It would be like denying that being 7 feet tall increases your chances for the NBA.

I'm not saying being of East African descent isn't an advantage, but by putting an asterisk by his name you're bascically implying that it counts less for some reason. Noone qualifies the basketball gold medalists by saying "This guy won the gold medal! but keep in mind he's like 7 feet tall." Meb won a silver medal as an American, for America. And in my opinion that is the only qualification necessary.

AJAX wrote:

LetsRun.com wrote:

But if you don't get the fact that being African born - being of East African descent - is an advantage in distance running then you don't follow the sport very closely.

It would be like denying that being 7 feet tall increases your chances for the NBA.

I'm not saying being of East African descent isn't an advantage, but by putting an asterisk by his name you're bascically implying that it counts less for some reason. Noone qualifies the basketball gold medalists by saying "This guy won the gold medal! but keep in mind he's like 7 feet tall." Meb won a silver medal as an American, for America. And in my opinion that is the only qualification necessary.

That was very well put.

Anyways, for content:

In order of most likely to medal.

1. Lagat - no way we won't see a medal in the 5000.

2. Jager - He's on fire and the field seems weak this year.

3. Rupp - I think he's capable of doing something great in the 10k, and I'll go nuts if he does.

4. Symmonds - like you guys said, hardest part will be making the finals.

serge-ibaka wrote:

Linsanity wrote:

After declaring Lomong a medal contender when he ran Stanford, you now give him a 2% chance. I do understand the sport, now.

a LOT has happened since then. Would you really like to argue that he has a higher chance than that?

No sh!t, Sherlock.

That's my point. 2% is high, and so is everyone else if they give him higher chances.

Right. It was so engrained (sic) none of his siblings run nor did his parents realize it was a way to make a living.

Is this correct?

"Galen Rupp - He has two chances to medal and in the 10,000, the Kenyan and Ethiopians squads aren't very credentialed at all on the track...To be truthful, he is the only American-born athlete (maybe Lagat as well) we can really imagine winning gold."

To the best of my knowledge, Lagat is not American-born.