Olympic Daily Glance, Day 10 — I do like Mondays

Monday at the Olympic Games: Big test for the neo-Dream Team. Fencing and tennis are already over. How’d that happen?

WHAT HAPPENED SUNDAY

Usain Bolt happened, that’s what. And Sanya Richards-Ross. And Lin Dan (did I tell you to watch the men’s badminton final?). And Andy Murray, along with Serena and Venus Williams. (Murray also got a silver, incidentally, in mixed doubles.)

Good day for U.S. women’s teams — beach volleyball (both teams) and water polo advanced, and volleyball and basketball won easily. Nothing surprising, but nothing to take for granted.

In wrestling, it was a good day for Armenia.

MEDAL PROJECTION UPDATE

Nailed the men’s 100. Right medalists, wrong order — women’s marathon, men’s steeplechase, women’s triple jump and men’s doubles badminton. And that little hunch I had about Murray over Federer paid off — if Novak Djokovic had won, I’d have swept the men’s singles.

Britain’s good day means that I’m only five off their total count. If you look back at my comparison of medal projections, you’ll see that the Wall Street Journal’s picks are indeed coming closest to fruition. The Infostrada/USA TODAY pick of 88 medals for the USA is looking awfully shaky — just over halfway, the USA has 60 medals with a lot of their best events to come.

The one country throwing everyone off is Australia.

Underprojected: China 5, five tied at 4 (France, Denmark, North Korea, Mexico, South Africa), three tied at 3 (South Korea, Cuba, Colombia)

Overprojected: Australia 10, Turkey 5, Germany 5, Britain 5, New Zealand 4, Brazil 3, Italy 3.

The USA is still running two ahead of my projections, even though I thought I was being overly optimistic.

Most of the countries that have matched my projected total have no medals or maybe one or two. The exception: Japan. Projected 27, earned 27. The only problem — I picked 11 gold. Actual: 2.

(Continued …)

MONDAY’S VIEWING RECOMMENDATIONS

Times ET. Everything’s available online. NBC, MSNBC and NBC Sports Network may occasionally hop around to other events. Names are U.S. athletes unless otherwise mentioned.

And my life has changed since finding NBC’s online Gold Zone, which hops around from event to event. 

Slightly different today – I’m going to organize this by hour rather than by sport. Let me know if you think this is cleaner.

3-6 a.m.:

• 3:30: Women’s field hockey. New Zealand-Germany. Early-bird special.
• 4:00, NBC SpNet: Men’s basketball. Australia-Russia. Another early-bird special.
• 4:00: Shooting, men’s 50-meter 3-position and men’s trap qualifications.
• 4:30: Canoe sprint, various heats (through 7-ish)
• 5:00: Track and field, various heats (through 7-ish)
• 5:45, NBC SpNet: Women’s field hockey. USA-South Africa. Neither team can advance to semifinals.

6-8 a.m.: Nothing specific. You can flip between track and field or various non-USA team sports. NBC Sports Network has Russia-Serbia men’s volleyball at 7:15. Look, just get a nice breakfast and settle in.

8 a.m.:

• 8:00: Wrestling, men’s 84kg Greco-Roman first round. Chas Betts.
• 8:00: Sailing, Laser radial medal race. CHN, NED, IRL, BEL in four-way medal battle. Paige Railey ninth.  Picks: USA-NED-GBR
• 8:09: Wrestling, men’s 60kg Greco-Roman first round. Ellis Coleman.
• 8:45, NBC SpNet: Boxing, women’s flyweight quarterfinals. Marlen Esparza.
• 8:45: Shooting, men’s 50-meter 3-position final. Matt Emmons, Jason Parker.  Picks: ITA-HUN-USA
• 8:54: Wrestling, men’s 120kg Greco-Roman round of 16. Dremiel Byers.

9 a.m.:

• 9:00: Equestrian, third jumping qualifier/team jumping final. Picks: GER-FRA-USA
• 9:00: Gymnastics, men’s rings. Picks: CHN-BRA-JPN
• 9:00: Sailing, Laser medal race. AUS, CYP nearly locked in gold, silver. No USA. Picks: AUS-GBR-NZL
• 9:30: Wrestling, men’s 60kg/84kg/120kg Greco-Roman round of 16/quarterfinals. (They go quickly – follow @USAWrestling for updated times. Will MSNBC cut into Romania-Serbia volleyball?)
• 9:50: Gymnastics, women’s uneven bars. Gabby Douglas.  Picks: RUS-CHN-USA

10 a.m.: NBC says it’ll have 30 minutes of track and field before water polo. NBC SN has a really large window for Italy-Bulgaria volleyball. MSNBC says table tennis at 10:30.

• 10:00: Synchronized swimming, duet qualification free routine.
• 10:15: Wrestling, men’s 60kg/84kg/120kg Greco-Roman semifinals.
• 10:30, NBC: Men’s water polo. USA-Hungary. USA could finish first, fourth or anywhere between.
• 10:41: Gymnastics, men’s vault. Sam Mikulak. Picks: KOR-RUS-JPN
• 10:45: Boxing, women’s middleweight quarterfinals. Claressa Shields.

11 a.m.: Flip around for wrestling, shooting and canoe/kayak.

• 11:00: Cycling, men’s sprint semifinals. GBR-TRI, FRA-AUS
• 11:00: Shooting, men’s trap final. Picks: RUS-ITA-ITA
• 11:08: Cycling, women’s omnium starts with flying time trial
• 11:15: Men’s handball. Iceland-Britain.

Noon: Flip around for table tennis, synchro swimming and track/field, allegedly.

• 12:00, NBC SpNet: Women’s soccer, semifinal. France-Japan
• 12:06: Cycling, women’s omnium points race.
• 12:43: Cycling, men’s sprint final. Picks: GBR-GER-FRA
• 12:45: Wrestling, men’s 60kg/84kg/120kg Greco-Roman repechage/bronze

1 p.m.

• 1:18: Cycling, women’s omnium elimination race.
• 1:46: Wrestling, men’s 60kg Greco-Roman gold medal match.  Picks: IRI-KAZ-AZE-RUS

2 p.m.:

• 2:00: Track and field, women’s pole vault. Jenn Suhr vs. Yelena Isinbayeva, we think. Picks: RUS-USA-BRA
• 2:00: Beach volleyball, quarterfinals. Gibb/Rosenthal
• 2:00: Diving, men’s springboard preliminaries.
• 2:00: Weightlifting, men’s 105kg. Picks: POL-RUS-UKR
• 2:15: Track and field, women’s shot put. Picks: NZL-BLR-USA
• 2:20: Track and field, women’s 200 first round.
• 2:21, MSNBC: Wrestling, men’s 84kg Greco-Roman gold medal match.  Picks: TUR-BLR-POL-BUL
• 2:45: Women’s soccer, semifinal. USA-Canada.
• 2:56, MSNBC: Wrestling, men’s 120kg Greco-Roman gold medal match.  Picks: CUB-TUR-ARM-KAZ

3 p.m.:

• 3:00, NBC: Men’s volleyball, USA-Tunisia. USA can clinch group.
• 3:15: Track and field, women’s 400 hurdles semifinals.
• 3:45: Track and field, men’s 400 hurdles. Three Americans, including Kerron Clement and Angelo Taylor, and I picked against them. I’m dumb. Picks: GBR-PUR-USA

4 p.m.:

• 4:05: Track and field, women’s steeplechase. Two Americans in final. Picks: RUS-KEN-ETH
• 4:30, NBC: Track and field, men’s 400. No Americans made final, so forget my picks. Picks: USA-GRN-USA

5 p.m.:

• 5:15, NBC SpNet: Men’s basketball, USA-Argentina.

Plus handball, hockey, table tennis and boxing.

Check the full schedule for time updates and results throughout the day: London2012.com

REMINDERS

Full TV listings: NBCOlympics.com
Full online listings: Also NBCOlympics.com

You know who actually has the best glance of how Americans are faring? Wikipedia.

I’ll be doing this daily during the Games. As a reminder, you’ll also find my work at Bleacher Report, and I’ll be helping Trapit capture the best Olympic news sources. Follow @TrapitSports or all Olympic-related Trapit feeds on Twitter for more.