Here's some more half-assed prognostications: Women's 100m: 1. Jones, for gold medal no.1 (the biggest certainty of her five events) 2. Ottey, presuming she gets a run, for her most impressive Olympic showing and a big story 3. Thanou, been in hiding but ran fast early on 4. Miller, better over 200m 5. Ferguson 6. Pintusevich-Block 7. Arron, after terrible start 8. Sturrup Time: 10.69 Women's 200m 1. Jones, may be tiring by now, with LJ distractions 2. Miller, will run a tiring Jones close 3. Ferguson 4. Freeman, in new Australian record 5. Gainsford-Taylor 6. Perry 7. Davis-Thompson 8. Jayasinghe (or Hewitt for three aussies) Time 21.89 Women's 400m 1. Freeman, and the stadium will roar 2. Merry, let's see if linford has her tapered right 3. Guevara, strong 4. Nazarova, darkhorse, could be biggest threat 5. Colander-Richardson, peaked two months ago 6. Ogunkoya 7. Graham 8. Collins Time 49.20 (and much quicker if Perec turns up) Women's 800m 1. Mutola, finally 2. Formanova 3. Miles-Clark, needs more races 4. Graf 5. Tsyganova 6.Tamsyn Lewis, because Coach Peter Fortune (also Cathy freeman's coach) knows what he's doing, and because she runs for Bayside, and because she does have 51s speed and a lot of fighting ability 7. Raspopova 8. Vriesde, because she's always there Time 1.56.98 Women's 1500m 1. Masterkova, maybe... this event is so wide open 2. Jacobs, underraced as always, but is so impressive when on song 3. Favor-Hamilton, why not? 4. Beclea-Szekely 5. Crowley, was 5th in Atlanta, has been off and had a baby, peaking at right time again 6. Dulecha 7. Rogachova 8. Sacramento Time 3.59.95 because it might make a difference to this whole "five golds" thing (although i actually think the 4x4 is as bigger a worry - beware the russians) Women's Long-Jump 1. Kotova, produced a lot of clutch jumps in Golden League this season 2. May, love her to win after she was robbed last year, but she hasn't really got it together 3. Drechsler, and another medal in 2004... 4. Jones, unlike most, i admire her for putting her neck on the line, but her technique is still worse than most 12 year olds 5. Kravets 6. Burrell 7. Johansson 8. Barber? Distance 7.14m And for symmetry's sake Men's Long Jump 1. Beckford, best of an inconsistent bunch 2. Pedroso, dropped form in past month or two 3. Burge, egged on by local crowd, Lamela style 4. Lamela, the big man's back 5. Sosunov, probably the form athlete 6. Lister 7. Taurima, although he's capable of anything from 1st-20th 8. Stringfellow, and goes out partying with Taurima afterwards Distance 8.35m André Sammartino Reckon you know your stuff? Come try our Olympics track and field tipping comp http://surf.to/bayside
