Well, part of me thinks that the gold medal is pretty obvious per discipline but I've watched, as many of you have, quite a few Olympics and been surprised by who withdrew, who was there and put out the skate of a lifetime, and who was expected to win but did not for one reason or the other. Especially with the possibility of getting ***** last minute and not being allowed to compete.
Which Olympics had a virtually lock going in lose though in any event? I am trying to think of times and I can hardly think of anytime it happened. These are the people I thought going in were virtual locks and how it went.
1980 Olympic pairs Rodnina & Zaitsev- won
1980 Olympic dance Linichuk & Karpanasov- won (barely but they won)
1984 Olympics dance Torvill & Dean- won
1984 Olympics Hamilton- won
1988 Olympics pairs Gordeeva & Grinkov- won
1988 Olympics dance Bestiamanova & Bukin- won
1992 Olympics pairs Miskutienok & Dmitriev- won
1994 Olympics pairs Gordeeva & Grinkov- won
1998 Olympics dance- Gritschuk & Platov- won
2006 Olympics pairs Totmianina & Marinin- won
2006 Olympics men Plushenko- won
2006 Olympics dance Navka & Kostomarov- won
2010 Olympics pairs Shen & Zhao- won
2010 Olympics ladies Yu Na Kim- won
2014 Olympics pairs Volosozhar & Trankov- won
2018 Olympics mens Hanyu- won
Yeah looks like every single time someone went in who felt like a virtualy lock they won. No exceptions. Probably going back even earlier than that. The only times I could see people coming up with would be ones I wouldn't agree with.
1998 Olympics Kwan- She was definitely the favorite, but I didn't feel like she was ever a lock like the above mentioned. She had lost to Tara 3 times in less than a year, and was injured.
1992 Olympics Ito- I have a feeling some would say this but I would definitely disagree with this. She was for sure the favorite, and I picked her to win, but both Yamaguchi and Harding were threats to her and for the gold as well. She had a ton of pressure on her and was already a bit beat up with injuries by this point of her career. Plus had been 4th at the previous years worlds, even if only due to accidents. If this were in 1990 with no figures she would feel like a lock, but not by 1992. If she skated cleanly she was unbeatable, but this was far from a sure thing by then.
2014 Olympics Kim- Definitely not. She had an injury, had not competed all season. Asada had built up momentum, a lot more than she had in 2010. And with it being in Russia it was predcitable the Russian girls would be overscored if they skated even competently well. She was probably still the favorite but only a shaky favorite, unlike 2010.