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Top sportsbooks have released their odds for Wednesday’s slate of Olympics competition.
Three competitions interest me across two different sports: the 800m and 5000m in athletics and Sweden vs. Denmark in handball.
For your best bets, I will recommend investing in Marco Arop to win the 800, Hagos Gebrhiwet to win the 5000, and Denmark to cover the spread in handball.
Men’s 5000m Round 1 (Athletics)
Wednesday, August 07, 2024 – 05:10 AM ET at Stade de France
The Favorite
Currently, Jakob Ingebrigtsen is listed as the heavy favorite to win this event.
He will try to double by winning both the 1500m and 5000m, which is a daunting task.
The 1500m is known to be his best event, which he’ll look to win on Tuesday night. Still, he remains ambitious to dominate in other events.
Despite this ambition, he hasn’t been able to accrue as much recent experience in the 5000 in particular as he has in other events.
This year, he has not participated in a single 5000m race. While, given who he is, he does have a strong history in this event, I find his lack of recent practice in this event to be troubling.
Betting Against Ingebrigtsen
The 5000m is a different sort of race than the 1500m. The pacing is obviously different. The tactics will also look different.
Defenders of the Norwegian will say that his amazing times in the 1500m translate to similarly amazing 5000m times.
While these calculations hold merit in an abstract theoretical sense, the fact is that they lack a basis in reality.
I dislike Ingebrigtsen in this event, especially while he is the favorite, because the best time that he’s ever run is 12:48.45, which he accomplished back in 2021.
This is a competitive field with a lot of good runners, and there are other runners who have recently shown more explicit promise through their experience in this event.
My Favorite Choice
The odds make the list of underdogs very enticing to choose from.
We are getting so many great distance runners who are well-proven on the world stage – and who certainly don’t share Ingebrigtsen’s history of choking in big races – at amazing prices.
My favorite option to invest in for this upcoming race is the Ethiopian Hagos Gebrhiwet.
With Gebrhiwet, we are getting the most recently well-proven and the best-proven 5000m guy at a great price.
Unlike Ingebrigtsen, he has run the 5000m this year and he has done an incredible job.
Just over two months ago, in Oslo, Gebrhiwet ran the second-best 5000m ever, clocking in at 12:36.73. This is over ten seconds faster than Ingebrigtsen’s best time.
Athletics Best Bet: Hagos Gebrhiwet +400 at BetOnline (visit our BetOnline Review)
Men’s 800m Round 1 (Athletics)
Wednesday, August 07, 2024 – 05:55 AM ET at Stade de France
The Favorite
Djamel Sedjati is favored at -135 to win the 800m. It isn’t hard to understand why Sedjati is favored: he is a proven winner in the 800m.
In recent competition, he has won 800m after 800m, specifically in Paris and then in Monaco.
However, I don’t want to invest in him, because it’s unrealistic to expect Sedjati to keep beating so many good runners. Nobody is perfect.
History also suggests that we’ll see an 800m event that is different from the 800m competitions that Sedjati recently won.
Olympics History
Sedjati’s recent times in the 800m are undeniably amazing. However, Olympics history suggests that we won’t see such fast times.
Since 2000, only two Olympic gold medal winners have run under 1:44.
History suggests, in other words, that we’ll see a winning time that is at least a couple of seconds slower than what Sedjati has done in recent competition.
To explain this history, perhaps the seriousness of the Olympics and the awareness of what is at stake has runners nervous, and so they begin slow and tight.
The Finishing Kick
With a slower race, more runners will be grouped together at the very end, meaning that more runners who are not as good as Sedjati will be in the mix.
The winner is going to be the runner with the best finishing kick. We can, therefore, locate betting value in runners with the best kicks.
My choice is Marco Arop. If you read reports of his races, you’ll find him characterized as the sort of runner who relies on a late finishing kick.
This upcoming 800m event is going to be right up his alley.
Perhaps the most famous instance of his finishing kick is the 800m at the World Athletics Championships in 2023 when he went from last to first.
Arop has an elite finishing kick, giving him great betting value and making him the best option to disrupt Sedjati’s unsustainable winning streak.
Athletics Best Bet: Marco Arop +800 at BetOnline
Sweden vs. Denmark (Handball)
Wednesday, August 07, 2024 – 11:30 AM ET at Pierre Mauroy Stadium
Sweden’s Form
Sweden has had some great-looking results and some poor ones.
How do we decide whether it will put together a great performance or a poor one in Wednesday’s match?
The key pattern is this: Sweden fares very well against weak competition but poorly against good competition.
Sweden had no problem dismantling Croatia and Japan. However, Croatia and Japan are two of the weakest teams in the Olympics.
On the other hand, Sweden lost by five to Slovenia. Slovenia is a good team, one that Sweden couldn’t bully. The Slovenians finished second in Group A.
Denmark’s Dominance
Denmark has looked unbeatable so far, making it a great money-line option for your parlays, and I also like them to cover the spread.
The Danes dominated well-respected France in the first match.
While the French can fairly be said to be in poor form at the moment, the same cannot be said of Norway.
Norway, which has played so well, especially on defense, and which has nearly beat a tough Egyptian side, gave up 32 points to Denmark in a seven-point loss.
While Sweden is struggling with second-tier teams like Slovenia and also Germany, Denmark is in the top tier all by itself.
Handball Best Bet: Denmark -4.5 (-105) at Bookmaker (visit our Bookmaker Review)
*The line and/or odds on picks in this article might have moved since the content was commissioned. For updated line movements, visit BMR’s free betting odds product.
