The United States men’s basketball team is expected to beat every single opponent it plays. It didn’t happen in Athens, though; Team USA lost three games to see its all-time Olympic record fall to 114-5.

That must have been quite the wake-up call. The team that landed in Beijing is taking things much more seriously. Kobe Bryant is there; so is coach Mike Krzyzewski, who is working with Mike D’Antoni to make sure Team USA plays a style that is more effective against international competition.

This approach has the United States once again favored quite heavily at 1-5 to win the gold medal. The defending winners from Argentina are the third favorites at 12-1; it looks like the toughest competition will come from Spain at 5-1. Pau Gasol, Jose Calderon and company won’t be pushovers – but Team USA looks too good, too deep and too committed to mess this one up.

The competition for Olympic medals will be tight in Beijing. But when it comes to the gold, oddsmakers are expecting the host nation to come through in spades. China is a heavy 2-5 favorite to rake in the most gold medals this summer; the United States is a distant second at 13-8.

As the host, China gets to send a certain minimum number of qualified athletes to each event. There will be 613 Chinese athletes at the Games this year compared to 407 in Athens. They’ll do well in their traditional strongholds like diving, badminton and table tennis. But China is pulling out all the stops to bring home the most gold at Beijing.

When the Soviet Union made a similar Olympic push during the Cold War, they won the gold medal race on a regular basis, including their first attempt at the 1956 Games in Melbourne. China today has significantly more economic clout than the U.S.S.R. did back then.