[El Analyzer 231]

 are the champion of IHF Emerging Nations Championship 2025 beating the home team  29-25 in an epic game.

 

still long journey to compete with top teams but it's very promising start to win our first title. 

[El Analyzer 231]

Team GB will face  in the final of IHF Emerging Nations Championship after beating  (the team who keep getting boosted before LA 2028) 29-25

 

It's not easy to beat  but so far this is the best performance for   in this championship.

[El Analyzer 231]

I didn't get why athletes are not playing specially in Judo, if their feet are not on the mat and are not fighting against different schools how would they improve and keep the form.

[El Analyzer 231]

Squash, Cricket and Lacross have a good setup but don't know if Flag Football (can't believe this name) and Baseball /Softball can compete at olympic level or too difficult!

[El Analyzer 231]

  On 10/2/2023 at 10:18 AM, Rafa Maciel said:

You are absolutely right -  has major issues with team sports. A lot of that is historical and down to the home nations structure and the funding mentality that if you're not winning on the international stage then there is no reason to support the sport. I think UK Sport have begun to realise that there a funding problem so they announced and additional 2.4mln in funding for 8 team sports and we are perhaps beginning to see the green shoots off the back of that funding.

 

Handball - Given how popular this was at London 2012 in the Copper Box arena, it was surprising that the federation wasn't able to capitalise more. As it is, we at least seem to have the structures in place to support the sport with age-group squads in place and the senior men are in the fight to take part in the 2026 European Championships.  

 

Beach Volleyball - The Bello brothers are a class team and can cut it on the international stage. The problem with them is that they lack consistency and haven't been able to make the breakthrough on to the main circuit. They are still in with a chance of qualifying for Paris but it would be through the continental championship pathway. 

 

Volleyball - Not sure we actually even have a team at this stage. This is a sport where the home nations are still maintaining their independence so this may be impacting the development of the sport. 

 

Basketball - Is actually in a pretty good place all things considered. It is beyond frustrating that the women threw away a great chance to qualify for Paris - I just hope that it doesn't lead to reduced financial support. By not taking up the place in the OQT the federation aren't exactly showing a great amount of respect or confidence in the men's squad. 

 

3x3 Basketball - Absolutely agree this should be an area of focus. You would think there would be a fairly deep talent pool available if only they went looking for it. 

 

Water Polo - They seem to have made good use of their additional funding - particularly on the women's side where they have qualified for European Champs for the first time in 10 years. If they can continue to make solid progress it is not beyond possibility that we could see them at an Olympics in near future. 

 

If I was going to single out a sport that is screaming out for development it would probably be sprint canoe - we're world leaders in the Paralympic events but can't replicate that success in the Olympic events. 

 

One of the things that we don't seem to be doing as well now is promoting talent identification programmes. In the run up to London, the various GB federations seemed to make coordinated and well publicised efforts to find new blood for their sports but schemes like "Sporting Giants" seem to have fallen by the wayside. 

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Absolutely right mate, I wasn't aware of the development of waterpolo and thanks for the clarification ... you have spotted a very good example (Canoe) ..this has a great potential and I am wondering why we are lacking in the main Olympics compared to paralympic success!!

 

Sporting Giants scheme was a great one but my feeling it has been done as a preparation for London 2012 and there was lack of impetus to continue ..I think few Handball colleagues had been selected based on that scheme 

[El Analyzer 231]

There are certain sports we are not competing in a high level and definitely can’t qualify for the Olympics, I have just prepared a quick list for sports which may/can/should be developed in the next years IMO:

 

• Handball: I put it first as this is my sport and I was playing for Reading Lions HC (unfortunately it has been dissolved after COVID), the sport has a huge potential in the country it also matches the British mentality which like both Football and Rugby (handball has goal scoring techniques like football and it’s physical contact sport close to rugby to some extent), England Handball Association had a very optimistic plan to get more youngers to the sport and myself went to schools and universities and picked up some great talented (very proud that the captain of U18 now I have picked him myself and was playing for our team before moving to Denmark now), the development of the sport had a huge delay during COVID and following Brexit specially when a lot of friends from different nationalities lost their jobs and return back home (our team dissolved for that reason), to conclude I think we have a lot of hidden talents can fit perfectly in this sport if we focus more to get youngsters on the field early.

 

•  Volleyball and beach volleyball: despite the conventional volleyball is a nice sport to practice but from observation we are far away from achieving professional level, people are mostly practicing it in a friendly non-competitive way compared to handball. Saying that the beach volleyball is much easier to get to professional level, when we were playing the beach handball British championship at Poole each summer and just before COVID the tournament organisers added beach volleyball as a side activity for entertainment but it turned to be more competitive and interesting tournament gripped a lot of teams with great fun and quality, my suggestion is to start focus more on beach volleyball which can be adopted anywhere not just near the beaches.

 

• Basketball and 3X3 basketball: since London Olympics and the huge potential basketball got more and more development and we have qualified for Eurobasket in the last two editions (not great results I know) the team is on its way in my opinion suffering defeats from stronger teams but in a very competitive and close results most of the time (last edition wasn’t the greatest) I hope we keep it up for upcoming challenges. Looking at this huge potential in conventional basketball I would say 3X3 is a version we should focus more in future, it needs more fitness and physical efforts and a good selection of the team members then any country can compete in a higher level (with proper training of course)

 

Those are the sports I hope they got developed more, would like to see if there are more in your opinions.

[El Analyzer 231]

  On 8/23/2023 at 11:01 PM, mpjmcevoy said:

There seems something in the fact that the two wins, last year and this, were almost identical. Doesn't seem just race luck, seems like a brilliant plan worked out by Wightman pére last year and brilliantly copied by Kerr. It takes a certain confidence to run a sub 3:30 while relying on outkicking the fastest in the world.

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Exactly same tactic, Jakob was focusing on beating world record and didn't prepare well for a tactic race

[El Analyzer 231]

Is it the same qualifications.. i mean the first 12 in qualification advanced to finals?

i was expecting bbc to broadcast the whole championship too