The Paris Olympics competition begins in exactly three weeks. It’s a soft launch, as they say in the media world, with a handful of preliminary matches in men’s football and men’s rugby sevens kicking off on Wednesday, July 24, followed by women’s football (including Canada versus New Zealand), archery, handball and more men’s rugby sevens the following day. The opening ceremony will take place on Friday, July 26. Then the competition will literally begin, with swimming set to be the highlight of the first full day of competition on Saturday.

Anyway, this seems like a good time to check out the latest news. Olympic Medal Projections From our friends at Gracenote at Nielsen (a division of the company that measures television audiences). Their model analyzes the results of various World Championships, World Cups, Grand Prix and other major competitions to predict the medal winners of the 329 events that will take place in Paris.

Gracenote's previous forecast in April predicted Canada would win 22 medals: six gold, seven silver and nine bronze. This would equal the second highest total in the country in one of the unboycotted summer games (along with Atlanta 1996 and Rio 2016) and would be left with two medals of the record of 24 unboycotted medals that Canada would have won three years in Tokyo, which included seven. Golden.

The new projections, released last week, reduce Canada's medal count to 20. The good news is that the gold medal count remains at six and the silver count increases to nine, but the bronze count returns to five.

So what has changed?

As for the gold medals, not much. The Gracenote brand continues to see summer swimming phenom McIntosh win his top two events (the 400m individual medley and 200m butterfly) and 800m runner Marco Arop, judoka Christa Deguchi and break dancer Philip Kim (aka Phil Wizard) win gold in his own. The only change is in the decathlon, where Canadians Pierce LePage and Damian Warner swapped places. Warner is expected to retain his Olympic title while LePage, the current world champion, will drop to silver.

Unfortunately, that outlook may be too optimistic for LePage. He missed last week's Canadian track and field trials with an unspecified injury that kept him out of action for most of the outdoor season. LePage has been a consistent Olympic call-up, but it's questionable whether he'll be fit enough to compete for a medal, or even make it to Paris.

Even if LePage can't go, Canada looks set to win a lot of medals in track and field. In addition to gold for Warner and Arop, Gracenote continues to predict silver and bronze for reigning world hammer throw champions Camryn Rogers and Ethan Katzberg, while shot putter Sarah Mitton and the men's 4x100m relay team will go from bronze to silver.

In contrast, the model still thinks relay presenter Andre De Grasse will not win a medal in the 100m individual or 200m, even though he is the reigning Olympic champion in the latter and has never missed the podium in an Olympic event.

The model may also be underestimating Katzberg. He came out of nowhere to win gold at last year’s world championships, but the 22-year-old appears to be the real deal. Katzberg is undefeated in 2024 and owns the three longest throws in the world this year. His best mark (a North American record of 84.38m in April) is nearly three metres higher than anyone else’s. Meanwhile, Rogers’ chances of winning women’s Olympic gold recently improved when world leader Brooke Andersen fouled out of the U.S. trials and failed to qualify for Paris. If you take out the 2022 world champion, Rogers owns the two best throws of the year.

While Canada is expected to win the same number of track and field medals (seven) as in the April forecast, Gracenote has reduced the swimming medal total from six to four. McIntosh is expected to compete in all of them: in addition to her pair of golds in the projections, she'll likely be part of the women's 4x100m freestyle and 4x100m medley relay teams that are slated for bronze. But the 17-year-old sensation went from a bronze medal in the 200m individual medley in the April forecast to missing the podium in the new one. Defending Olympic 100m butterfly champion Maggie MacNeil also lost her bronze spot.

Another disappointing story: Canada's women's soccer team, whose surprising gold medal in Tokyo was likely the highlight of the 2021 Games in that country, is expected to miss the podium for the first time since 2008. The forecast also indicates that the increase in the number of male players will not medal in the basketball team despite its historic bronze medal at last year's Basketball World Cup. The women's eight rowing team is expected to win bronze after its thrilling Olympic gold medal three years ago.

To sum up some positives in the Canadian medal predictions, canoeist Katie Vincent is still expected to win two silver medals; Canada is expected to win its first medal in artistic swimming (formerly synchronized) in 24 years; and the model says Tammara Thibeault will win Canada's first boxing medal since the late David Defiagbon won a heavyweight silver in 1996.

Here is the full list of projected medals for Canada according to the latest version of Gracenote:

Gold

Swimming: McIntosh Summer Season (Women's 200m Butterfly)

Swimming: McIntosh Summer Season (Women's 400m Medley)

Athletics: Marco Arop (men's 800m)

Athletics: Damian Warner (decathlon)

Breaking: Philip Kim (B-Boys)

Judo: Christa Deguchi (57 kg women)

Money

Athletics: Men's 4x100m Relay Team

Athletics: Pierce LePage (decathlon)

Athletics: Camryn Rogers (women's hammer throw)

Athletics: Sarah Mitton (women's shot put)

Boxing: Tammara Thibeault (75 kg women)

Canoe Race: Katie Vincent (Women's Individual)

Canoe Race: Katie Vincent and Sloan MacKenzie (Women's Doubles)

Judo: Catherine Beauchemin-Pinard (53 kg women)

Artistic swimming: team event

Bronze

Swimming: Women's 4x100m Freestyle Relay Team

Swimming: Women's 4x100m medley team relay

Athletics: Ethan Katzberg (men's hammer throw)

Rowing: women's eight

Judo: Shady Elnahas (100 kg men)