Overview

A poorly planned itinerary meant that I ended up with a 9-hour layover in Dubai and as I didn't need all that time to pick up the duty free, I have mapped out the year ahead across most of the summer sports. There's still a couple of sports which don't seem to have published their full calendar, so expect that there will be some updates in the next few weeks. 2028 Los Angeles Qualification Timeline.xlsx

Excellent skeleton results so far this season. 5 golds and 9 medals from 9 races. The men are racing tomorrow, but the Women now have a short Christmas break before the season resumes in Winterberg in Germany on January 2nd. On the women's side, currently GB are occupying the second of the two slots for 3 Olympic qualifiers, which would be an amazing achievement given the men's squad have been comparatively stronger the last olympic cycle. The way the qualifying system works is the top two nations with the 3rd highest ranked athlete are allocated 3 quotas. are almost certainly going to take one of those slots, leaving GB in a battle to secure the second. Currently GB's 3rd ranked athlete is Freya Tarbit in 12th on 488 points. The 's 3rd best is on 440 in 19th, although I believe she has more minor races counting towards her ranking which should be outweighed by world cup points. no 3 is ranked 26th on 348. Behind that the competition drops off rather steeply. GB are in a good position and I hope they take all 3 quotas, as all 3 athletes are capable of medalling on their day. I will note however, that the next tracks are much more drivers tracks, so the start boost of the British athletes may not be a beneficial, but the same will be of the Chinese and Americans.

Silver medal for Zoe Atkin in the Ski Halfpipe in China behind the inevitable Eileen Gu.

Skelton continues to impress - Silver for Tabitha Stoecker in the Women - again with a great drive - and Gold once more in the Team.

Good result for the Women's Cross Country Sprint team - finished 17th in Qualifying, so not into the final, but beat very credible teams like Australia, Japan, Kazakhstan, Estonia....will be very good for our Olympic Qual chances.

Matt Weston takes Gold again in Lillehammer with Marcus Wyatt 7th & Jacob Salisbury 14th.

Team GB site saying it's the biggest figure skating squad we've had in almost 40 years

Figure Skating team named. Representation in all events, which I don't believe we have had for a whilr. https://www.bbc.co.uk/sport/articles/cx2pngg20q2o

6 players with direct entry to the Australian Open Men's Singles Jack Draper Cameron Norrie Jacob Fearnley Women's Singles Emma Raducanu Sonay Kartel Fran Jones Katie Boulter misses out on direct entry - at 106 she needs 3 to drop out if she wants to avoid going through qualifying.

Draw for Singapore stop in the HSBC Rugby SVNS is out. For the men, will face off against , and . So far this season, Spain is the only country that GB have managed to record victory over so the chances are GB are looking at another 7th or 8th place finish. On the women's side, remain winless this season. In Singapore they will face off against , and . Nothing suggests that GB will break their duck in any of those games.

2nd leg of the 25/26 HSBC Rugby SVNS completed in Cape Town Starting with the women's side - they've now gone two tournaments without winning a single match. In fact, they haven't even been close to winning any of their matches so far. In the pool, they started with a 38-10 defeat to , before being drubbed 40-0 by before finishing with a 31-17 loss to . In the 5th place semi, they lost to 25-7 and finally, condemned them to last place (again) with a 43-7 defeat. The men had a better tournament. In the pool, it was a 29-12 loss against , followed by a 21-17 loss to and finally a bruising 41-7 loss to . In the 5th place semi, recorded their sole win of the weekend with a 29-10 win over . In the end GB finish in 6th place after a losing out to 27-12. Not a lot to be said about the women's side. With the only other European nation, it's difficult to know where the team stand. On the men's side, GB have faced twice now and won on both occasions. So, from a European perspective, remains the top nation and assuming they will qualify through the SVNS series, GB could still be in the mix for the European quota.

Olympic triathlon champion Alex Yee ran 2h 6m 38 seconds in the Valencia marathon. He's now the fastest European born marathon runner of the year although 5 African born Europeans are still faster than him.

Another British Gold - Mia Brookes in the Snowboard Big Air in Beijing.

More medals for in Lublin Lauren Cox is the European Champion in the 100m Backstroke with time of 56.51 whilst Oliver Morgan took the bronze in the men's event in 49.68. In the 200m Breaststroke, Angharad Evans took silver in 2:18.90. Filip Nowacki lowered his European Junior Record to 2:02.96 but just missed out on a place on the podium. It's a GB 1-2 qualifying for the women's 200m individual medley with Freya Colbert quickest qualifier for the final with 2:06.42 ahead of Katie Shanahan in second with 2:06.57. Duncan Scott goes into the final of the men's 200m individual medley as third fastest qualifier in 1:53.22. Max Litchfield also qualifies - in 6th - with a time of 1:54.37. Eva Okaro qualifies for the final of 100m Freestyle in second with time of 51.48 but Freya Anderson misses out - her time of 53.06 left her down in 13th. Not been the best meet for Matt Richards so far and he'll need a swim off tomorrow morning to see if he gets through to the final of the 100m Freestyle.

Day 3 of Euros and more medals for Freya Colbert took the bronze in women's 200m Freestyle whilst Freya Anderson finished 4th and it was a 1-2 in the men's event with Duncan Scott taking Gold ahead of Jack McMillan. In the other events... Angharad Evans is the second quickest qualifier for the 200m Breaststroke final with a time of 2:18.84. Filip Nowacki is through to the final in the men's equivalent - he was 6th fastest with time of 2:04.07 but will need to find a couple of seconds if he is looking to get on to the podium. In the morning heats, he set a Junior Record time of 2:03.75 GB has the fastest qualifiers for the 100m Backstroke finals - Lauren cox in the women's and Oliver Morgan in the men's.

Both of the El-Shorbagy brothers compete under flag so would be eligible to compete for at the Olympics if they qualify. The same thing happens in badminton where the athletes compete under the home nation flags but earn the qualifying spots for

Do we know how the process would work in Squash qualification?, for example Makin & El-Shorbagy brothers do they need to participate under team GB flag or they can still play under the country flag but they will qualify as part of team GB?

Katie Shanahan takes the silver in 200m backstroke in a time of 2:02.79 but there was disappointment for Luke Greenbank int he men's equivalent as he missed the podium by 0.05 seconds. There's potential for 2 medals in the women's 200m Freestyle - Freya Colbert is fastest qualifier for the final in 1:51.94 and good to see Freya Anderson back to form as she qualifies for the final in 4th with a 1:53.69. In the men's 200m Freestyle, GB had the top 3 qualifiers from the heats which meant that Matt Richards ultimately missed out on progressing. In today's semis, Duncan Scott was the fastest qualifier for the final in 1:41.56 with Jack McMillan in 3rd with 1:41.69. Angharad Evans finished 6th in the 100m Breaststroke with a time of 1:04.40

Solid start to the European Short Course Championships. Gold for Jack McMillan in the 400m Freestyle in 3:36.33 whilst Duncan Scott takes 7th. Angharad Evens qualified for the final of the 100m Breaststroke in 3rd overall with a time of 1:03.28. Disappointment for Filip Nowacki as he failed to progress to the final - his semi-final time of 57.36 was only enough for 12th overall. Katie Shanahan is the 2nd quickest qualifier for the final of 200m backstroke with time of 2:03.73. Luke Greenbank is 3rd quickest qualifier for the men's 200m backstroke with a 1:49.37 - Jake Skerry is first reserve for the final after finishing 9th overall with a time of 1:51.59.

Given the mess that the national federation has been going through over the last couple of weeks, the basketball team put in 2 pretty solid performances in their World Cup qualifying pool. They came agonizingly close to defeating but conceding 9 points in 9 seconds including a 3 pointer with the final throw of the game meant they were on the wrong side of an 89-88 defeat. They bounced back yesterday with a 90-84 win over and currently sit top of their table. They'll be back on court at the end of February with a double header against

2nd round of Rugby Sevens in Cape Town at the weekend. 's women will be up against , and "An increasingly confident" men's team will be up against , and .

Not really sure that there's much hope for better things for 7s in this country, even with Scotland pushing it a bit. There are enough potential professional 15s contracts for half decent British players which means they are all unavailable and those that are left aren't good enough or would rather do something else. Maybe they should just pick the U20s and sell it to the clubs and players as a development thing? I guess that might be why Scotland added it to their 'pathway' but that's a small pool to pick from.

Less than inspiring results from the first leg of the 2025/26 Rugby Sevens. Men finish in 7th place after defeats to (21-14) and (26-17). On the upside, they did defeat (14-10) in the pool match. In the 5th place semi-final, they were crushed by (34-0). They finished up with a 24-19 win over . On the women's side, went down to defeats against (41-5), (36-5) and (55-0). In the 5th place semifinal, they then lost out to (49-14) before finishing the day with another loss, this time against (46-5). Needless to say, they finish the tournament in last place. The tour continues next week in Cape Town .

With Olympic silver medalist Tess Ledeux and 2025 World Champ Flora Tabanelli both still recovering from injury, Kirsty honestly has a genuine medal chance in Milan in the Big Air.

Men take bronze in the Euro Curling - bit disappointing as they managed their worst performance of the season for the semi. Women take the silver, which was a huge bonus. They're still a bit flaky, but capable of greatness. And a GOLD in the Ski Big Air in China for Kirsty Muir. She was a great teenager but had lost form following injury. So another big prospect for the Olympics! https://www.bbc.co.uk/sport/articles/clyd48rrel0o