Athletics Qualification to Summer Olympic Games Paris 2024 Road to Paris 2024

[Orangehair43 177]

On 10/20/2023 at 2:41 AM, rafalgorka said:

I wonder if Team GB will not send to Paris athletes who don’t get entry standards like they did in Budapest WCH.

 

What other NOCs could do the same? 
Germany? Sweden? Canada? China? Netherlands? Australia? Italy? New Zealand?

 

Poland will send everyone who can go if not injured or totally out of form.

France the same i think.

GB will very much only send about 25 individual athletes plus relay. Even stricter than Budapest 

 

 

[szy123 79]

On 10/28/2023 at 12:55 PM, rafalgorka said:

I doubt Ada Sułek will perform in Paris, she should give birth late January and heptathlon is Aug 8th-9th).

Or she performs like Miller-Uibo in Budapest.

I hope i'm terribly wrong here and she does a miracle and she will be one of the stories of the games being in - I don't know - Top 8, Top 6... swh close to her PB.

 

Anyway, i have a feeling she will be one of our biggest hopes for LA 28, she will be 29 then.

She declared that she'll perform. She's still training daily according to a special plan made with her team and doctors. 

[Rafa Maciel 1,261]

1 hour ago, Orangehair43 said:

GB will very much only send about 25 individual athletes plus relay. Even stricter than Budapest 

 

 

I think GB already have around 30-32 athletes who have hit the OQT within the qualifying window so whilst I agree with the sentiment, your number is probably a bit too pessimistic. So, unless something dramatic happens over the off-season, the squad is already heading towards the low 40s but has the potential to creep into the low 50s. 

[Orangehair43 177]

3 hours ago, Rafa Maciel said:

I think GB already have around 30-32 athletes who have hit the OQT within the qualifying window so whilst I agree with the sentiment, your number is probably a bit too pessimistic. So, unless something dramatic happens over the off-season, the squad is already heading towards the low 40s but has the potential to creep into the low 50s. 

I can see the BBC pushing heavily on the limited team sizes. It is proven that a lack of British interest lowers ratings in events. The world championships did not do particularly well in the ratings. 

[Rafa Maciel 1,261]

1 hour ago, Orangehair43 said:

I can see the BBC pushing heavily on the limited team sizes. It is proven that a lack of British interest lowers ratings in events. The world championships did not do particularly well in the ratings. 

The question of ratings and viewer interest is a separate issue to team size but for what it is worth, I think UKA have done an abysmal job in promoting the sport in the UK.

 

But on the issue of the GB team in athletics and why it has been picked up by the BBC, it comes down to a question of fairness - athletes across about a dozen sports earn their place at Olympics through their performances across the year building their ranking. UK Athletics has chosen to ignore this and is likely to be the only GB federation which will reject validly earned Olympic quotas. It was disappointing that there was more outrage from athletes over the sacking of Stephen Maguire than there was about 19 athletes being denied the chance to compete at the World Champs. 

 

Hopefully a lot of those folk who had their World Athletics invitation rejected this year are able to hit the qualifying standard - it would be the best way to stick two fingers up to the UKA selectors. 

[intoronto 4,249]

5 hours ago, Orangehair43 said:

I can see the BBC pushing heavily on the limited team sizes. It is proven that a lack of British interest lowers ratings in events. The world championships did not do particularly well in the ratings. 

The BBC would actually demand the cancelation of the games!!!!

[mpjmcevoy 202]

4 hours ago, Rafa Maciel said:

The question of ratings and viewer interest is a separate issue to team size but for what it is worth, I think UKA have done an abysmal job in promoting the sport in the UK.

 

But on the issue of the GB team in athletics and why it has been picked up by the BBC, it comes down to a question of fairness - athletes across about a dozen sports earn their place at Olympics through their performances across the year building their ranking. UK Athletics has chosen to ignore this and is likely to be the only GB federation which will reject validly earned Olympic quotas. It was disappointing that there was more outrage from athletes over the sacking of Stephen Maguire than there was about 19 athletes being denied the chance to compete at the World Champs. 

 

Hopefully a lot of those folk who had their World Athletics invitation rejected this year are able to hit the qualifying standard - it would be the best way to stick two fingers up to the UKA selectors. 

Swimming too will leave quotas at home - only bringing those who make the GB times in the final at British trials, and then the one's they feel like picking (usually with relays in mind)

[Rafa Maciel 1,261]

2 hours ago, mpjmcevoy said:

Swimming too will leave quotas at home - only bringing those who make the GB times in the final at British trials, and then the one's they feel like picking (usually with relays in mind)

I think I've commented elsewhere on UK Swimming's selection policy - long story short, I am not a fan. There is no rational justification for putting an arbitrary cap on the number of athletes that you are willing to take - especially when you set that cap a year ahead of the selection event.

 

Looking at the times so far in the qualifying window I think you are probably right and there will be some athletes who achieve the 'OCT' but don't ultimately make it on to the GB team, but I would expect that number to be in the low single digits. I find swimming selection hard to predict because of the level of doubling up that we see but it will be interesting to see how GB Swimming deal with athletes who have the GB qualifying standard in one event but only has the OQT in another - like Freya Colbert who has the GB standard for the 200 Freestyle but not in the 400 Freestyle - will they select them to the team and allow them to compete in all of the events where they have the OQT or will they restrict them to the events where they have the British standard. 

 

I get the impression that the selectors already know who they want to take, and they have shown that when those athletes don't quite perform as expected, they will be willing to move the goalposts so whilst the policy might say that you have to achieve the qualifying time in the final, they have left themselves with enough flexibility to take the athletes that they want to. 

[mpjmcevoy 202]

18 hours ago, Rafa Maciel said:

I think I've commented elsewhere on UK Swimming's selection policy - long story short, I am not a fan. There is no rational justification for putting an arbitrary cap on the number of athletes that you are willing to take - especially when you set that cap a year ahead of the selection event.

 

Looking at the times so far in the qualifying window I think you are probably right and there will be some athletes who achieve the 'OCT' but don't ultimately make it on to the GB team, but I would expect that number to be in the low single digits. I find swimming selection hard to predict because of the level of doubling up that we see but it will be interesting to see how GB Swimming deal with athletes who have the GB qualifying standard in one event but only has the OQT in another - like Freya Colbert who has the GB standard for the 200 Freestyle but not in the 400 Freestyle - will they select them to the team and allow them to compete in all of the events where they have the OQT or will they restrict them to the events where they have the British standard. 

 

I get the impression that the selectors already know who they want to take, and they have shown that when those athletes don't quite perform as expected, they will be willing to move the goalposts so whilst the policy might say that you have to achieve the qualifying time in the final, they have left themselves with enough flexibility to take the athletes that they want to. 

The system allows them a patina of qualification respectability, but ultimately, with one or two breakthrough exceptions, they'll take who they want - not least as once there, they can enter anyone in an event they have the time for even if that time was NOT got at finals. Not unlike athletics, GB Swimming go hard on relays these days - to be fair, that brought 2 golds and a silver last Games, and several world golds to boot, and unlike UKA, GB swimming have overseen a general improvement.

Much depends on Peaty - so far, his return has not been electric, but it has been very encouraging, he's behind the new Chinese wunderkind, but already catching others like Fink off presumably limited work - my instinct is he'll be there or thereabouts next year, motivated by a unique threepeat opportunity. The sudden religious element in his motivation I prefer not to talk about...

If Peaty is there or thereabout then, even with wunderkind, both medley relays are absolutely back in the game, although America is much, much better for the mixed than last time. In addiition, barring calamity I expect GNR to qualify for 4 x 100 free M, and I think their times in 2023 are already good enough in all other relays. If that holds...

...I think GBR are gold medal favourites in 4 x 200 free, medal favourites in both medleys and M 4 x 100 free and a good outside bet in W 4 x 200 free

Richards, Scott, Guy and Dean are a pretty amazing quad to be able to bring on 200 free 100 free (probably swapping Burrus for Guy and possibly whittle for Scott) and 200 IM. Freya Anderson continues to have the tools, but perhaps not the mentals, to do clown stuff on 200 free, and is a super solid 100 free leg, especially in heats

Individually, apart from the above, it's hard to say - will Greenbank come back to his world class form? Will Kstie Shanahan and Freya Colbert kick on? Will one of the several good  british 100 back girls break through into great?

[rafalgorka 1,386]

2 minutes ago, mpjmcevoy said:

The system allows them a patina of qualification respectability, but ultimately, with one or two breakthrough exceptions, they'll take who they want - not least as once there, they can enter anyone in an event they have the time for even if that time was NOT got at finals. Not unlike athletics, GB Swimming go hard on relays these days - to be fair, that brought 2 golds and a silver last Games, and several world golds to boot, and unlike UKA, GB swimming have overseen a general improvement.

Much depends on Peaty - so far, his return has not been electric, but it has been very encouraging, he's behind the new Chinese wunderkind, but already catching others like Fink off presumably limited work - my instinct is he'll be there or thereabouts next year, motivated by a unique threepeat opportunity. The sudden religious element in his motivation I prefer not to talk about...

If Peaty is there or thereabout then, even with wunderkind, both medley relays are absolutely back in the game, although America is much, much better for the mixed than last time. In addiition, barring calamity I expect GNR to qualify for 4 x 100 free M, and I think their times in 2023 are already good enough in all other relays. If that holds...

...I think GBR are gold medal favourites in 4 x 200 free, medal favourites in both medleys and M 4 x 100 free and a good outside bet in W 4 x 200 free

Richards, Scott, Guy and Dean are a pretty amazing quad to be able to bring on 200 free 100 free (probably swapping Burrus for Guy and possibly whittle for Scott) and 200 IM. Freya Anderson continues to have the tools, but perhaps not the mentals, to do clown stuff on 200 free, and is a super solid 100 free leg, especially in heats

Individually, apart from the above, it's hard to say - will Greenbank come back to his world class form? Will Kstie Shanahan and Freya Colbert kick on? Will one of the several good  british 100 back girls break through into great?

What is patina???