World athletics bible, Track and Field News magazine has made its predictions for the Tokyo Olympic Games, and they are not good reading for New Zealanders.
Men's shot putter Tom Walsh is the only Kiwi listed as a medal contender across both men's and women's events.
The magazine said it was making its predictions a little earlier than usual, but with the sports world affected by the global Covid-19 pandemic, there were only three gold medalists from the Rio de Janeiro Games in 2016 who were favoured to repeat.
Walsh is ranked a silver medal winner between Americans Ryan Crouser (gold) and Joe Kovacs (bronze). All three were medalists in Rio de Janeiro in 2016 with Walsh taking bronze but switching with Kovacs in the magazine's rankings this year.
It's even worse in the predictions for women where no New Zealanders are featured. Only four Rio gold medal winners are listed as favourites to repeat.
Dame Valerie Adams' absence from the competitive scene in recent years is reflected in the favouritism going to Chinese thrower Lijiao Gong, who was fifth at the Rio de Janeiro Olympic Games in 2016. Portugal thrower Auriol Dongmo, who competed for Cameroon and took 10th place at Rio, is the silver medal prospect. Jamaican Danniel Thomas-Dodd, who finished seventh behind Adams at the 2018 Commonwealth Games, is the favourite for the bronze medal.
Liza McCartney's injury-enforced absence is behind in her non-appearance in the rankings, where Russian Anzhelika Sidorova is the favourite ahead of American Sandi Morris and Greek Katerina Stefanidi.