The Best and Worst Predicted Events of the 2020 Tokyo Pick’Em Contest

2020 TOKYO SUMMER OLYMPIC GAMES

• When: Pool swimming: Saturday, July 24 – Sunday, August 1, 2021
  • Open Water swimming: Wednesday, August 4 – Thursday, August 5, 2021
• Where: Olympic Aquatics Centre / Tokyo, Japan
• Heats: 7 PM / Semifinals & Finals: 10:30 AM (Local time)
• Full aquatics schedule
• SwimSwam Event Previews
• Entry Lists
• Live Results

The 2020 Tokyo Olympics Pick’Em contest was a whirlwind of predictability and unpredictability.

There were 5 times that the winner of an event had less than 10 votes to win. There were 9 times that someone in the top 4 had less than 10 votes for them to place in the top 4.

The best-predicted event was the men’s 100 breaststroke where World Record holder Adam Peaty of Great Britain won by .63. The least predicted event of the meet was also on the men’s side in the 400 free where Tunisia’s Ahmed Hafnaoui out touched Australia’s Jack McLoughlin by .16 to win gold.

Hafnaoui flew in under the radar for Pick’Em voters. Not one of them predicted Hafnaoui would place in the top 4, let alone win the event.

You can read about the final results here and you can find results for each day on the event page here.

Thanks to SwimSwam’s Barry Revzin for running the stats.

Biggest Surprises to Win (In Terms of How Many People Picked Them to Win)

1.  0 – Ahmed Hafnaoui (Men’s 400 Free)
2.  1 – Wang Shun (Men’s 200 IM)
3.  3 – China (Women’s 4×200 Free)
T4. 4 – Bobby Finke (Men’s 800 Free)
T4. 4 – Bobby Finke (Men’s 1500 Free)
6.  23 – Lydia Jacoby (Women’s 100 Breast)
7.  56 – Tom Dean (Men’s 200 Free)
8.  58 – Great Britain (Mixed 4×100 Medley Relay)
9.  61 – Yui Ohashi (Women’s 200 IM)
10. 91 – Evgeny Rylov (Men’s 100 Back)

Biggest Surprises to Place in the Top 4

T1. 0 – Ahmed Hafnaoui (Men’s 400 Free, got 1st)
T1. 0 – Matti Mattsson (Men’s 200 Breast, got 3rd)
T1. 0 – Fernando Scheffer (Men’s 200 Free, got 3rd)
4.  1 – Henning Muhlleitner (Men’s 400 Free, got 4th)
5.  2 – Penny Oleksiak (W 200 Free, got 3rd)
T6. 3 – Noe Ponti (Men’s 100 Fly, got 3rd)
T6. 3 – Evgeniia Chikunova (Women’s 100 Breast, got 4th)
8.  4 – Canada (Men’s 4×100 Free, got 4th)
9.  9 – Maxime Grousset (Men’s 100 Free, got 4th)
10. 14 – Jeremy Desplanches (Men’s 200 IM, got 3rd)

Biggest Upsets (In Terms of Who Picked Them to Win and They Did Not)

1. 861 – Lilly King (Women’s 100 Breast, got 3rd)
2. 749 – USA (Women’s 4×100 MR, got 2nd)
3. 733 – Australia (Women’s 4×200 Free, got 3rd)
4. 720 – Daiya Seto (Men’s 400 IM, got 9th)
5. 709 – USA (Mixed 4×100 MR, got 5th)
6. 685 – Gregorio Paltrinieri (Men’s 800 Free, got 2nd)
7. 634 – Elijah Winnington (Men’s 400 Free, got 7th)
8. 580 – Katinka Hosszu (Women’s 400 IM, got 5th)
9. 562 – Duncan Scott (Men’s 200 Free, got 2nd)
10.558 – Katinka Hosszu (Women’s 200 IM, got 7th)

Best Predicted Events (In Terms of Average Score)

1.  14.8 – Men’s 100 Breast
T2. 14.1 – Women’s 4×100 Free
T2. 14.1 – Men’s 100 Fly
4.  14.0 – Women’s 800 Free
5.  13.5 – Men’s 100 Free

Worst Predicted Events (In Terms of Average Score)

1.  3.4 – Men’s 400 Free
2.  4.3 – Women’s 200 IM
T3. 4.5 – Men’s 200 IM
T3. 4.5 – Women’s 100 Breast
5.  4.8 – Men’s 200 Free

Best Predicted Events (In Terms of Most to Get 1-2-3-4)

1. 104 – Men’s 200 Back
2.  94 – Men’s 100 Breast
3.  72 – Women’s 4×100 Free
4.  50 – Men’s 4×200 Free
5.  39 – Women’s 100 Back

Best Predicted Events (In Terms of Most to Get 1-2-3-4 in Any Order)

:1. 500 – Men’s 1500 Free (0 people got the order right)
2. 450 – Women’s 100 Fly (18 got it right)
3. 439 – Women’s 200 Fly (15 got it right)
4. 410 – Men’s 4×200 Free (50 got it right)
5. 350 – Men’s 200 Back (104 got it right)

Worst Predicted Events Highlights

• 16 events had nobody get 1-2-3-4.
•  12 events had nobody even get 1-2-3.
• 4 events had nobody even get 1-2: Men’s 1500 Free, Men’s 200 IM, Men’s 400 Free, and Women’s 100 Breast.