While athletes from all over the world are competing in Paris, The 2024 Arlington Olympics are your chance to compete in a series of events against athletes in Arlington, VA!
The 2024 Arlington Olympics are a multi-day athletic competition between August 3-10, 2024. The competition is hosted by Arlington Sports Conditioning (ASC), Arlington’s #1 outdoor workout for over 10 years.
The 2024 Arlington Olympics will be an experience you don’t want to miss. Space is limited. Register at ArlingtonSC.com/Olympics.
Note: The 2024 Arlington Olympics is not affiliated in any way with The Olympics in Paris.
Betting Favorites
With Arlington, VA winning “Fittest City in the U.S.” for the seventh straight year, The 2024 Arlington Olympics has been generating significant interest from sports bettors.
BetMGM and Caesars Sportsbook just released their betting favorites for each event. The sportsbooks disagree on most of the favorites. See below.
Event #1: 100-Yard Sprint
- Female Favorite: Chelsea Matzen (Caesars) and Lisa Gewirtz (BetMGM)
- Male Favorite: Greg Tashjian (Caesars) and Colby Miller (BetMGM)
Event #2: 200-Meter Sprint
- Female Favorite: Chelsea Matzen (Caesars) and Tina Georgia (BetMGM)
- Male Favorite: Greg Tashjian (Caesars) and Tucker Howard (BetMGM)
Event #3: Ab Plank Competition
- Female Favorite: Joy Halsey (Caesars and BetMGM)
- Male Favorite: Andres Rodriguez (Caesars) and Steve Apsel (BetMGM)
Event #4: 400-Meter Sprint
- Female Favorite: Hillary Dang (Caesars and BetMGM)
- Male Favorite: Dom Angelotti (Caesars) and Carlos Rivera (BetMGM)
Event #5: Vertical Jump
- Female Favorite: Charlotte Bussema (Caesars) and Fernanda Sobral (BetMGM)
- Male Favorite: Matt Morin (Caesars) and Andrew Naybor (BetMGM)
Event #6: Pushup Competition
- Female Favorite: Helen Tiene (Caesars and BetMGM)
- Male Favorite: Rob Salerno (Caesars) and Aaron Shapiro (BetMGM)
Event #7: Three-Point Basketball Shooting Contest
- Female Favorite: Charlotte Bussema (Caesars) and Jill Shapiro (BetMGM)
- Male Favorite: Jeremy Zelman (Caesars) and Joel Denicoff (BetMGM)
Event #8: One-Mile Run
- Female Favorite: Hillary Dang (Caesars and BetMGM)
- Male Favorite: Dom Angelotti (Caesars) and Marc Williams (BetMGM)
Event #9: Team Obstacle Race
- Odds to be released right before race time
Event #10: Table Tennis Tournament
- Female Favorite: Dana Gerk (Caesars) and Joy Halsey (BetMGM)
- Male Favorite: Rich Taylor (Caesars) and Andres Rodriguez (BetMGM)
Betting Insights from BetMGM and Caesars Sportsbook
In order to provide further insights on the betting favorites, ASC spoke with two of the country’s top sports betting experts:
- Jonathan McProteen, Head of U.S. Sports Betting at BetMGM
- Heather DaSpinnich, Head of U.S. Sports Betting at Caesars Sportsbook
Caesars has Chelsea Matzen and Greg Tashjian taking gold for the 100, while BetMGM predicts two upsets with Lisa Gewirtz and Colby Miller taking gold. “Matzen and Tashjian won the last two times. We see them defending their crowns,” said DaSpinnich.
Caesars also favors Matzen for the 200, even though there are questions about her endurance after she skipped this year’s ASC workout at the hill at Sky Meadows State Park.
BetMGM favors Tina Georgia for the 200. “She just returned from a trip to Glacier National Park. She claimed it was a vacation, but our drones captured images of her doing 200-meter sprints up the mountains,” said McProteen.
On the mens’ side, the sportsbooks also disagree on the favorite for the 200. Caesars favors Tashjian, while BetMGM has Tucker Howard winning the gold.
Tashjian and Howard had been roommates, but the upcoming competition led to a contentious split with the men moving into separate residences and unfollowing each other on Instagram.
“Over the last few weeks, we’ve had some huge bets on Howard for the 200, including a 7-figure bet from a man in Connecticut,” said McProteen. “The 7-figure bettor said he had some extra money lying around after recently signing a large contract extension.”
Both sportsbooks are all-in on Hillary Dang going for gold in the 400 and one-mile races on the womens’ side. “Since Dang ran a 5:55 mile in a training run last week, we have also had some action on prop bets for her to take the overall title in the one-mile race,” said DaSpinnich.
On the mens’ side, Caesars has Dom Angelotti taking gold in the 400, while BetMGM has Carlos Rivera. “The 400 requires speed, endurance, and grit. Rivera has all of those in spades,” said DaSpinnich.
For the one-mile race on the mens’ side, Caesars favors Dom Angelotti, the overall winner of the ASC one-mile race back in the spring. However, BetMGM has Marc Williams pulling an upset.
“Williams has moved residences twice in the last two weeks. We believe that will give him the endurance boost required to unseat Angelotti in the mile,” said McProteen.
Both sportsbooks predict Helen Tiene taking home gold for the push-up competition on the womens’ side. “The only way someone knocks off Tiene in the pushup competition is if she gets cocky and tries to do all her pushups with one arm,” said McProteen.
On the mens’ side, the sportsbooks are divided. Caesars has 2023 ASC Athlete of the Year Rob Salerno taking the crown, while BetMGM has Aaron Shapiro. “We are excited to see the two former hockey players fight it out on the pushups,” said DaSpinnich.
Caesars has pickleball enthusiasts Joy Halsey and Andres Rodriguez winning gold in the ab plank competition. “Our sports analytics team has found a direct correlation between time spent playing pickleball and someone’s abdominal strength,” said DaSpinnich.
BetMGM also has Halsey taking gold in the ab plank contest, but they have Steve Apsel winning gold on the mens’ side. “Apsel’s wrestling background should serve him well on that one,” said McProteen. “We see him pinning the competition.”
For the three-point basketball shooting contest, Caesars has Charlotte Bussema and Jeremy Zelman winning gold, while BetMGM has Jill Shapiro and Joel Denicoff finishing first.
Bussema, Shapiro, Zelman, and Denicoff all turned down invites to compete in Paris with Team USA Basketball in order to go for gold in The Arlington Olympics 3-point contest. “We question that decision but admire their loyalty to Arlington,” said McProteen.
Caesars also has Bussema taking the Vertical Jump event for the women, while BetMGM has Fernanda Sobral as the female favorite. “We went with Sobral for this one, partly because she plays volleyball and partly because she is a black belt and we were afraid what might happen if we didn’t select her,” said McProteen.
On the mens’ side, Caesars has Matt Morin taking gold in the Vertical Jump, while BetMGM has Andrew Naybor. “The only question is whether Naybor shows up for the event,” said McProteen. “We know he prefers working out in the evenings.”
“Morin has some serious hops,” said DaSpinnich. “There is a recent video that went viral where he jumped so high on a volleyball spike that one of his feet actually got stuck in the net.”
Finally, the event with the greatest betting intrigue is the table tennis event. Caesars is favoring tennis players Dana Gerk and Rich Taylor, while BetMGM is favoring pickleballers Joy Halsey and Andres Rodriguez.
“Our bettors are all-in on tennis players for the table tennis event,” said DaSpinnich. “The event isn’t called table pickleball.”
McProteen was quick to fire back. “Our bettors are all-in on the picklers,” he said. “Tennis is a sport of the past that is quickly being replaced by America’s new pastime, the Lubber Run upstart known as pickleball.”
Caesars and BetMGM extend their sincerest apologies to all of those not favored for any of the events. Join us from August 3-10 to prove them wrong!
P.S. If you choose to participate in sports betting or gambling, we encourage you to do so responsibly.
Questions?
Send an email to ASC Founder Pete Leibman at Pete@ArlingtonSC.com.