How Did We Do? Reviewing Our Hits (And Misses) Of The Olympic Pick ’em Contest

SwimSwam’s Tokyo 2020 Olympic Pick ’em Contest

• See All The Entries
• Final Results
• The Best & Worst Predicted Events

Amid the twists and turns of the swimming program in Tokyo, SwimSwam’s official predictions held up reasonably well in our Olympic pick ’em contest (something that hasn’t always been the case, but who’s keeping track), tying for 24th place overall out of 902 entries.

The official picks, based off the selections made in each of our event previews, scored 391 points, with editor-in-chief Braden Keith doing even better, compiling 403 points to tie for fourth in the standings. User Tyrannosaurus Tex picked up the victory with 421 points.

So where did our picks get it right? Where did we miss? Let’s take a look:

Days 2 & 6 Were Huge

SwimSwam’s official picks had a few disastrous days, relatively speaking. Our selections sat in a tie for 629th after Day 1, ranked 572nd on Day 7 and 367th on Day 5. But, these missteps were made up for with a couple of high-scoring sessions.

Our picks ranked tied for third on Day 2, which moved the entry’s official ranking up from 629th into 32nd overall, and on Day 6, we tied for eighth to vault into a tie for seventh overall after leaving the fifth day in 34th.

Overall we predicted six podiums perfectly, and three of them happened to fall on Day 2.

Day 2 Medal Events

Correct selections in bold/italics.

While we’re over here patting ourselves on the back, let’s not get too carried away. The men’s 100 breast was the most well-predicted event in the contest based on average score, and it ranked second with 94 users correctly selecting the top four in the right order.

The women’s 100 fly also had essentially half of the entries correctly select the top four swimmers in any order (450, ranking second to the men’s 1500: 500), though our official picks were just one of 18 to get the order bang on.

Just over a quarter of users (252) correctly selected Maggie MacNeil to win the women’s 100 fly, and about a third tagged Zhang Yufei (303) for silver, both key picks in SwimSwam’s jump up the rankings on the second day.

Two more of the perfectly-selected podiums came on Day 6.

Day 6 Medal Events

Correct selections in bold/italics.

Day 6 again had one of the easiest events to predict on the program, the men’s 200 back, where 104 users selected the top four finishers in the correct order. Our official picks failed to convert on fourth place there, but did in the women’s 200 breaststroke, where SwimSwam was one of just 12 entries to get the top four correct.

One of the worst predicted events was the men’s 200 IM, and our results show no different, failing to pick any of the medalists correctly.

Only one entry picked Wang Shun to win, and the event as a whole tied for third-worst in terms of average score for the meet. In fact, no users even correctly predicted the top two finishers, regardless of order. We had silver medalist Duncan Scott pegged for fourth, so some points were salvaged, but this race was a huge miss for essentially everyone and therefore a wash.

Day 3 Was Also Strong

While not as good as Days 2 and 6, SwimSwam’s Day 3 showing was still solid, ranking 42nd in the field which was good enough to move up from t-32nd to t-14th in the overall standings.

Day 3 Medal Events

Correct selections in bold/italics.

The women’s 100 back was the sixth event where our official picks hit the podium on the head, and we were actually one of just 39 entries to correctly select the top four.

About two-thirds of entrants had Regan Smith slotted in for either first or second, and the majority (511) thought Kathleen Dawson would find herself in the top four—two keys to our success in this race.

The rest of the Day 3 events weren’t great, but were solid enough for our picks. We correctly picked six of the nine swimmers that landed on the podium for the day, just in the wrong order. Hitting Rhyan White and David Popovici to take fourth in their respective events was an under-the-radar success.

Other Correct Picks

Simply going with the favorite and not galaxy-braining every selection was another crucial factor in SwimSwam’s success in the contest, correctly selecting 19 out of 35 winners. This included Caeleb Dressel sweeping his individual events in the men’s 50 free, 100 free and 100 fly, Katie Ledecky winning the women’s 800 and 1500 free, and Zhang Yufei and Kristof Milak triumphing in the women’s and men’s 200 fly.

The relay picks were solid as a whole, hitting eight podium placings bang on and getting 15 out of 21 total medalists right.

Misses

While many of the events we failed to convert on were straight up shockers, something essentially no one predicted coming in, we can still nitpick a little and look where we made some blunders.

Day 1 was our worst day by far, with all three of our individual gold medal selections not even finishing in the top four (Daiya Seto, Elijah Winnington and Katinka Hosszu).

In hindsight, it’s hard to argue with any of those picks—Seto and Hosszu were far and away the fastest swimmers in their respective fields over the last couple of years, despite questions of their form coming in, while the men’s 400 free was wide open and Winnington was the fastest man by a wide enough margin. Leaving Jack McLoughlin (men’s 400 free) and Jay Litherland (men’s 400 IM) off the podium were oversights we’d probably like back, but it’s hard to regret much despite the poor showing.

The other real bad day for our picks came on Day 7.

We picked the three individual gold medalists correctly, as did most entrants, with Dressel in the men’s 100 fly, Kaylee McKeown in the women’s 200 back and Ledecky in the women’s 800 free.

Slotting Kylie Masse out of the medals in fourth in the women’s 200 back is a selection we’d probably like to redo, and flip-flopping Ariarne Titmus (picked third, finished second) and Simona Quadarella (picked second, finished third) in the 800 would’ve made sense, but overall the individual picks weren’t bad.

The mixed medley relay was a tough one, though—we picked three of the top-four finishers right, but none in the correct order. Our fourth-place team, Great Britain, roared to the win, while our gold medal picks from China took silver. The U.S. wound up fifth after misjudging their lineup, and the Aussies, who we pegged for silver, were the bronze medalists.

All in all, only 10 entrants didn’t put the U.S. in the top four, and just 58 selected the Brits to win. So it wasn’t horrible relative to the field, but it still resulted in a solid drop in the overall standings leading into the last day.

Looking at the big picture, our lowest scoring event was the men’s 400 free, putting just two points on the board, but it was the worst overall as well.

SwimSwam only scored four points in the men’s 800 free, 200 breast, 200 IM and 400 IM, and the women’s 100 breast and 200 IM.

The men’s 800 free almost went really well; we picked Gregorio Paltrinieri, who was a close second to upset-winner Bobby Finke—whom only four people picked to win—to get the victory. Our pick for second, Mykhailo Romanchuk, fell to third.

The men’s 200 breast was a pretty big miss as well, with gold medalist Zac Stubblety-Cook our only correct pick on the podium (we had him down for bronze). Anton Chupkov and Shoma Sato are defendable top-two picks given how fast they’d been recently, but we’d probably liked to have had Arno Kamminga in the top four over Matthew Wilson, based on their form coming in.

Braden’s Picks

Unlike SwimSwam’s picks, which had some great days and some real stinkers, Braden was much more consistent throughout the meet. A strong second day moved him into the top 10 overall, and he eclipsed 50 points in each of the last five days to ultimately tie for fourth with 403 points.

A couple of keys for his success included nailing the correct 1-2-3-4 placings in the women’s 100 butterfly and men’s 100 breaststroke.

In the men’s 800 free, despite taking a stab at ninth-place finisher Henrik Christiansen to win, that ended up working in his favor, as only four people picked Finke to get first, and as a result, Braden got second, third and fourth right for some big points.

Another factor was rolling with Siobhan Haughey. Braden was among the 16.7 percent of entrants that placed Haughey on the podium in the women’s 100 free (picked third, finished second), and in the 200, going with the correct 1-2 of Titmus/Haughey was a point-producer as well. Only 87 entries (9.6 percent) had the correct gold-silver duo there—73.9 percent people picked Katie Ledecky to get either first or second.

To see all of the entries from the contest, click here.

FINAL PICK’EM STANDINGS