Badminton is a fascinating sport; to the untrained eye it’s almost impossible to tell what’s a winning shot. It looks like a player has just won the rally, when the rally ends up going on another 20 shots. As much grief as it gets in the United States for being an Olympic sport, it’s actually a very good staple of the Olympic program.

Tokyo 2020 results:

Outlook (as of June 26, 2023):

This is one of the sports China needs to do well in for their hopes of knocking the United States out of the top spot. They had two golds in Tokyo, but that wasn’t enough. However, in all three events that they didn’t win gold, they ended up with silver. That should be a concern for the U.S., because all the Chinese need to do is flip two of those three, and they take the medal count.

Of course, the inverse is also true. Perhaps China flips two of those silvers to golds, but then also has the golds swapped to silvers. But it’s not that easy! Keep in mind that one of those events was a gold-silver finish for China. So even if it was flipped, it’s still a China gold. Because of that, I’m going to be very bullish on China’s prospects in badminton for 2024.

Update (as of June 25, 2024):

Chinese players have rocketed up the men’s singles rankings, and China always does well at this event. Players from Indonesia are still high up there, but I have to add a Chinese player to my medal predictions, if not two. My women’s picks are the same as they were a year ago, except in different order. Doubles gold medal picks remain the same, but there are some changes in the other medals.

Projections:

Projected medal count:

Archery became popular thanks to Katniss Everdeen and the Hunger Games. That movie caused the sport to be one of the most watched at London 2012 (a few months after the Hunger Games movie came out). I have to admit, I’m one of the fans who was in that category.

They also changed the format of archery to make it more enticing to watch. Personally, I saw nothing wrong with the way they used to do it, but the new format is better for TV, so there you have it.

Tokyo 2020 results:

Outlook (as of June 25, 2023):

I didn’t even realize until now that there were different bows used in archery and that those different categories mean that there’s totally different world rankings based on which bow you use. I’m now sort of fascinated by this. You’ve got the compound, the barebow, and the recurve, and the recurve is the Olympic one. That’s the one which I will use the world rankings to decide my projections.

Projections:

Projected medal count: