Team USA Paris 2024 predictions: breakout stars to a seismic basketball shock

Medal count winner …

USA. In terms of overall medals, it’ll be a wide margin. In terms of gold medals it’ll be a bit narrower because China so thoroughly dominates diving and table tennis. For the first week or so, China may be ahead, but USA’s track and field contingent will take charge in week two. BD

The US should comfortably outpace China in the overall medal count. The race for most golds projects much closer, but the Americans should prevail there as well barring a complete underperformance in track and field. BAG

Related: Purple reign: why Paris Olympics track could be the fastest in history

With China hamstrung by a widespread doping dragnet, and the country which shall not be named still on punishment for waging war on Ukraine, the US should take this walking away. Its precedent for excellence in a variety of sports is the world’s envy, and the rosters are deep. Only disappointments in track and swimming could stop America from scoring a record medal haul. AL

USA’s breakout star will be …

It should be Amit Elor, the 20-year-old two-time world champion in wrestling. But wrestling gets just a small share of the spotlight in the second week of the Games, so let’s go with versatile swimmer Kate Douglass, who already has a bronze medal from Tokyo but will have a much busier schedule this time around. BD

Noah Lyles’ exhilarating sweep of the 100m, 200m and the 4x100m relay at last year’s world championships was all but ignored stateside, where track and field only is afforded mainstream attention during the Olympics. Should he pull off the same treble at the Stade de France, and perhaps add a fourth in the 4x400m relay to put him in the company of Carl Lewis and Jesse Owens, it will be a different story altogether. BAG

After making her Olympics debut in Tokyo at age 15, swimmer Katie Grimes is poised to make a big splash again. The first American in any sport to book a Paris trip, Grimes is going for three long-distance medals in Paris, where her stiffest competition will arguably come from USA Swimming’s other Katie – Ledecky – in the 1500m freestyle. AL

Athlete of the Games (non-US division) will be …

Victor Wembanyama. In Tokyo, the French men’s basketball team beat the USA in both teams’ first game, then put up stubborn resistance in the final. Wembanyama, the NBA rookie of the year, could put them over the top. Also consider several Chinese swimmers and men’s gymnasts. BD

Canada’s teenage prodigy Summer McIntosh will swim four individual events – the 400 free, the 200m fly, the 200m and 400m individual medleys – plus as many as three relays. If everything breaks her way, a global superstar will be born. “Summer McIntosh is the single best overall swimmer in the world today. There really isn’t anybody better,” NBC swimming analyst Rowdy Gaines said recently. “A lot of people will know that name by the end of summer.” BAG

As my Jamaican father is fond of saying: the Olympics don’t start until the running does. And all eyes in that island nation will surely be trained on Shelly-Ann Fraser-Pryce when the women’s 100m events kick off on 2 August. With Elaine Thompson-Herah unable to defend her record-setting Tokyo gold because of an achilles injury, the pressure is on the 37-year-old Fraser-Pryce, three times a golden girl already, to hold off a fast closing American contingent that this time includes Sha’Carri Richardson, who is bent on redemption.

Bold prediction …

The US women take gold in every team sport except handball, in which they didn’t qualify, and field hockey. That includes basketball (a lock, again), 3x3 basketball, soccer, water polo, volleyball, beach volleyball, and the one that’s least likely but fits the word “bold” here, rugby sevens. They’ll also take gold in a lot of team-based events – the gymnastics team event, the women’s eight in rowing, several swimming and track relays etc. BD

France topple the US men’s basketball dynasty. Three years after a Tokyo Olympic tournament where they defeated the Americans in pool play before losing by five in the gold medal game, Les Blues finish the job before a rollicking home crowd as Wembanyama takes his place among his country’s all-time sporting greats. BAG

The IOC finds a way to take back the just-awarded Salt Lake City Games. Thinking about the prospect of a former prosecutor ascending to America’s highest office may have dented confidence in its ability to get the FBI off the Chinese swim team’s back. AL

Can’t miss events will include …

The track and field sprints are too obvious – everyone knows to be in front of the TV to see Noah Lyles and company in the men’s 100m (4 August, 3.50pm ET) and 200m (8 August 8, 2.30pm ET), and Sha’Carri Richardson making her delayed entrance on the Olympic stage in the women’s 100m (3 August, 3.20pm ET). The other times to carve out for viewing include the first and last days of swimming (27 July, 2.30pm ET and 4 August, 12.30pm ET), which will feature the GOAT Katie Ledecky, comeback-minded Simone Manuel and defending double gold medalist Bobby Finke in competitive individual races, along with highly charged relay events in which the US teams and their rivals may trade off the lead more than once in each race. BD

The swimming programme kicks off with a bang as the women’s 400m freestyle (27 July, 2.30pm ET) showcases the last three world record holders at the distance: Katie Ledecky, Australia’s Ariarne Titmus and McIntosh. And you’ll probably want to be in front of a TV for Simone Biles’ final competitive performance in the women’s floor exercise final (5 Aug, 12.30pm ET). And don’t forget Rafael Nadal and Carlos Alcaraz, a dream doubles team with 15 French Open singles titles between them, bringing their Peter Parker-Miles Morales act to the terre battue of Roland Garros. BAG

Among others: the men’s and women’s 100m finals, men’s singles gold match (4 August, 6am ET), the USA v Serbia men’s basketball rematch (28 July, 11.15am ET) and the women’s gymnastics team final (30 July, 12.15pm ET). But for my money, the event that could make for the most mesmerizing television is breaking, which starts on 10 August at 10am ET with the B-girls round robin. AL