Skip to main content

let the athletics begin!

Plenty of activity in the Olympic Stadium tomorrow, but most of it relates to heats and qualifications. The heptathlon gets off to an early start, plus there are two other sets of medals up for grabs on opening night. As with my swimming tips, I tend to bet late - when the field for the final is known and I have venue form to work from, rather than securing ante-post value days or weeks in advance.

Heptathlon

The markets show this as Jess Ennis v Tatyana Chernova but it's not that simple. The reigning Olympic champ is Nataliya Dobrynska who also won this year's world indoor pentathlon title. Her husband and coach died soon after that result causing her to take a short break from training. Since then her season has been fully focused on London, rather than any other multi-discipline event on the schedule in preparation. And she has a history of focusing on the big prizes, when she won in Beijing, her record during the year wasn't anything to get excited about either.

I'd love to see Jess Ennis win gold here, she is the face of the Games for most of Britain and the pressure on her has been huge. But at a best price of 1.8, I have to look elsewhere for value. I'd rather be on Dobrynska whose strengths are the throwing events which are Ennis' weakness. If she can keep up on the other disciplines, her chance of repeating becomes stronger.

0.5pt Dobrynska 7 Ladbrokes (bet down to 6)

Men's Shot Put

Tough to split the big men here. The Americans Cantwell, Hoffa and Whiting lead the way with three men who have all recorded 22m put this year but Storl (2011 WC), Majewski (2008 gold) and Armstrong (>22m last yr) have valid hopes. I think I'd rather watch qualifying in the morning first before identifying a bet.

No bet - yet

Womens 10000m

Cheruiyot and Dibaba rule the roost here, miles out in front of the market. Can't get involved.

No bet

Comments

Post a Comment

Thanks for your comments, but if you're a spammer, you've just wasted your time - it won't get posted.

Popular posts from this blog

Spot-fixing - you will never, ever be able to stop it

According to this report , IPL tournaments so far have been rife with spot-fixing - that is fixing minor elements of the game - runs in a single over, number of wides bowled etc. The curious part of that article is that the Income Tax department are supposed to have found these crimes. What idiot would be stupid enough to put down 'big wad of cash handed to me by bookie' as a source of income? Backhanders for sportsmen, particularly in a celebrity- and cricket-obsessed culture like India are not rare. They could come from anything like turning up to open someone's new business (not a sponsor, but a 'friend of a friend' arrangement), to being a guest at some devoted fan's dinner party etc. The opportunities are always there, and there will always be people trying to become friends with players and their entourage - that is human nature. This form of match-fixing (and it's not really fixing a match, just a minor element of it) is very hard to prove, but also, ...
Post a Comment
Read more

lay the field - my favourite racing strategy

Dabbling with laying the field in-running at various prices today, not just one price, but several in the same race. Got several matched in the previous race at Brighton, then this race came along at Nottingham. Such a long straight at Nottingham makes punters often over-react and think the finish line is closer than it actually is. As you can see by the number of bets matched, there was plenty of volatility in this in-play market. It's rare you'll get a complete wipe-out with one horse getting matched at all levels, but it can happen, so don't give yourself too much risk...
33 comments
Read more

It's all gone Pete Tong at Betfair!

The Christmas Hurdle from Leopardstown, a good Grade 2 race during the holiday period. But now it will go into history as the race which brought Betfair down. Over £21m at odds of 29 available on Voler La Vedette in-running - that's a potential liability of over £500m. You might think that's a bit suspicious, something's fishy, especially with the horse starting at a Betfair SP of 2.96. Well, this wasn't a horse being stopped by a jockey either - the bloody horse won! Look at what was matched at 29. Split that in half and multiply by 28 for the actual liability for the layer(s). (Matched amounts always shown as double the backers' stake, never counts the layers' risk). There's no way a Betfair client would have £600m+ in their account. Maybe £20 or even £50m from the massive syndicates who regard(ed) Betfair as safer than any bank, but not £600m. So the error has to be something technical. However, rumour has it, a helpdesk reply (not gospel, natur...
14 comments
Read more