Olympic athletes don’t just show up out of nowhere in an Olympic year, except maybe in a few secretive nations. Next year, we’ll have world championships in virtually everything, giving us a good chance to project what might happen in 2012.
We’re not waiting until then. We’re setting up some projections now, then revising as new results come in. It’s FiveThirtyEight with less math and no Rasmussen.
Today, it’s …
ATHLETICS: Women’s running events
We’re not Eurosnobs. Really. But isn’t “athletics” less awkward than “track and field”?
Besides, the marathon uses neither a track (except at the very end) or a field. And the shot put can be held anywhere.
The year’s top performances for each athlete are given in parentheses, but remember that some top athletes (Usain Bolt springs to mind) didn’t put much emphasis on running in a year with no Olympics or World Championships. (Source: IAAF)
We’re going to split this into running events and non-running events, then split it further by gender. We have a lot of ground to cover.
Continue reading 2012 medal projections: Old Cold War battles, Jamaica heat up women’s running
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