The men's Decathlon starts on the seventh day of the Olympics.  The US has a legitimate chance of sweeping the top three positions.  American Brian Clay is the Gold medal favorite and wants to improve on his silver medal from 2004.  Defending champion and world record holder Roman Sebrle is aging and suffering from serious injuries.  Favored for second is probably Andrey Kravchenko of Belarus and Dmetriy Karpov of Kazakhstan who has finished third at Athens and third last year.  Just recovering from elbow surgery is Osaka silver medalist Maurice Smith from Jamaica.  American Trey Hardee seems to have overcome his past issues with completing competitions and with a few more improvements he is a threat to medal as is veteran Decathlete Tom Pappas from Azalea, Oregon.  He was the favorite in Athens but injuries stopped him from winning.  He was impressive at the Olympic Trials and is close to medal contention.

Barbora Spotakova was last year's world champion in the Javelin and is likely to win again after another fine performance in qualifying.  She and Christine Obergfoll of Germany were more than three meters ahead of the rest of the competition in qualifying.  Obergfoll was the '05 and '07 World runner-up.  After them the competition is wide open for the bronze. 

The women's 200 meters will have three Americans against three Jamaicans again.  This time the two-time World gold medallist Allyson Felix will probably win and not allow another Jamaican sweep.  Defending gold medallist Veronica Campbell-Brown and recent Auburn grad Kerron Stewart have run under 22 seconds this year and should give the Jamaicans second and third. 

The men's triple jump lacks an American competitor.  This was disappointing after Aarik Wilson had been considered a medal favorite.  Phillips Idowu of Great Britain has been dominant this year and will likely continue his success.  '07 Nelson Evora of Portugal is likely to at least be the runner-up.  Jadel Gregorio of Brazil was second at the 2007 World Championships.  This is usually a very unpredictable event so expect a lot of surprises.

In the men's 400 meters Jeremy Wariner has been unbeatable since his loss to LaShawn Merritt at the Olympic Trials.  Expect Wariner and Merritt to go 1-2 at the Olympics but with the short turn-around at the trials for Angelo Taylor a likely 1-2-3 sweep was taken away.  Chris Brown of the Bahamas  has been fourth in the last two world championships and could get his first medal. 

 The men's 110 high hurdles will have two Americans try to knock off the world record holder Dayron Robles of Cuba.  Only David Oliver has beaten Robles this year and I think he will do it again in a possible world record of his own.  He does so much strength training under the tutelage of Brooks Johnson.  David Payne is likely to get the bronze.  It is too bad that Trammel is hurt.  It is likely the US would have three of the top four positions.