Our tipster PPXagent has his say on where the medals are going this summer.
Men’s 100m Gold Medal Winner: Noah Lyles
Men’s 400m Gold Medal Winner: Matthew Hudson-Smith
Men’s 1500m & 5000m Gold Medal Winner: Jakob Ingebrigtsen
Men’s 100m Breaststroke Gold Medal Winner: Adam Peaty
Men’s Basketball – Canada To Win a Medal
Women’s Handball Gold Medal Winner: France
*All prices are bang up to date with our snazzy widgets, while odds in copy are accurate at time of publishing but subject to change.
Men’s 100m Gold Medal Winner: Noah Lyles
Reigning 100m world champion Noah Lyles medalled at Tokyo 2020 but arrives in Paris chasing a bigger prize than the 200m bronze he collected in Japan.
Kishane Thompson is given a slight edge in the market, having posted a 9.77 personal best in the final of the Jamaican Championships where he ran three sub-9.85 races.
The 23-year-old boasts the world lead, but when accounting for wind, Lyles’ 9.81 personal best into a .3 m/s headwind in London was the quicker time.
Lyles took three gold medals home from the World Championships in 2023 and can cap off this period of dominance with the top prize this summer.
Matthew Hudson-Smith recorded a new men’s 400m European record and world lead at the London Diamond League on Saturday in a statement performance that proved why he is widely fancied to take gold in Paris.
The World Championship silver medalist had already set a personal best of 44.07 seconds in Oslo in May, and now the Brit has a stunning 43.74 to his name.
After disqualification from the 4x400m relay at the Rio Olympics and having missed the Tokyo Games through injury, Hudson-Smith is eyeing glory on the biggest stage and appears to have peaked at the perfect time.
Norwegian distance star Jakob Ingebrigtsen has completed gold medal doubles at every indoor and outdoor version of the European Championships since 2021.
The 1500m Olympic champion has been denied top honours over that distance by British athletes at each of the last two World Championships, but he is unbeaten over 5000m in his last four international competitions and will take some stopping in France.
Ingebrigtsen became only the fourth athlete in history to run 1500m quicker than 3:27 in the Monaco Diamond League in July as he set a world lead of 3:26.73. World champion and biggest rival for gold, Josh Kerr, has never broken 3:29.
The 23-year-old has used his Budapest 2023 disappointment as motivation and looks too good for the rest of the field in both events.
Adam Peaty has been open about his mental health struggles since retaining the 100m breaststroke title at the 2020 Olympics. But the Brit believes he can break his own world record to become the second male swimmer after Michael Phelps to claim gold in the same event at three separate Games, and his trials time offers plenty of encouragement.
Five years have passed since Peaty set a world record of 56.88, but he clocked 57.94 in April – only a quarter of a second slower than rival Qin Haiyang’s long-course personal best.
The most dominant sprint breaststroke swimmer ever has said there is “way more in there”, and he can add to his gold medal collection in Paris.
Team USA are heavy favourites to win a fifth successive men’s basketball gold medal at the Olympics, but their North American neighbours Canada look like the best value play across the competition.
The Canadians defeated the USA in the third place play-off of the 2023 FIBA World Cup in Manila. Steve Kerr has called upon superstars such as LeBron James, Joel Embiid, Steph Curry, Devin Booker, Jayson Tatum and Kevin Durant for his Paris roster, making the Stars and Stripes borderline unbeatable.
But while a gold medal may be a bridge too far for Canada, they could be the best of the rest and can avoid going home empty-handed. Their starting five is set to be made up entirely of NBA players, including two-time All-NBA First Team guard Shai Gilgeous-Alexander and the 2019 third overall draft pick RJ Barrett.
The pair each registered over 20 points in a convincing triumph over fellow medal contenders France in their penultimate warm-up game, and they can also count on the three-point shooting prowess of Houston Rockets wing Dillon Brooks.
Along with France, Serbia pose the biggest threat to Canada’s medal hopes, but they have not yet figured out how to best integrate three-time NBA MVP Nikola Jokic into the team without sacrificing what made them so good at the World Cup. The Denver Nuggets center had a combined +/- of -42 in back-to-back losses to Australia and the USA last week.
France claimed their first-ever gold medal in women’s handball at Tokyo 2020 and can defend their crown on home soil.
Having won 25 of their last 26 matches – a friendly defeat by Norway being the only blemish on an otherwise perfect record since the start of 2023 – the French enter the competition as an odds-on shot and it’s hard to argue with the oddsmakers’ assessment.
Pauletta Foppa was the top scorer in the gold-medal match in Japan and has racked up a plethora of individual accolades since. Another star has come to the fore in Léna Grandveau, who was the deciding factor for Les Blueses as they won the World Championship last year.
Men’s 100m Gold Medal Winner: Noah Lyles
Men’s 400m Gold Medal Winner: Matthew Hudson-Smith
Men’s 1500m & 5000m Gold Medal Winner: Jakob Ingebrigtsen
Men’s 100m Breaststroke Gold Medal Winner: Adam Peaty
Men’s Basketball – Canada To Win a Medal
Women’s Handball Gold Medal Winner: France Register here!
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