Team GB at 2024 Olympic Qualifier Series

[Rafa Maciel 1,593]

We've got about 6 weeks or so before the OQS kicks off in Shanghai for Breaking, Sport Climbing, BMX Freestyle and Skateboarding. With the fields set, we can start to identify who could potentially be in line to pick up quotas for Team GB.

 

[Rafa Maciel 1,593]

BMX Freestyle

 

 

There are 6 quotas available for the men and 6 for the women.  currently have 2 quotas secured at the World Champs last year and will be looking to add to that through the OQS. Worth pointing out that unlike other sports, the wording used in the qualification document suggests that it is possible that the same athlete can secure more than 1 quota. 

 

Men's Qualifiers:

Kieran Reily - Sealed a quota for GB after taking the World Championship in Glasgow last year. Currently ranked world number 1 but hasn't had the best results in 2024.

Jude Jones - World number 15. Put in strong performance in Glasgow to finish 6th but has generally finished mid-pack in the world-cup events.

Dylan Hessey - World number 16. Has put in a couple of decent performances at his last two world-cup events.

 

No Declan Brooks in the team. Brooks is still British number 2 and world number 10 but hasn't competed since October.

 

Women's Qualifiers:

Charlotte Worthington - Hasn't shown the kind of form that took her to the Olympic title but did enough to secure a quota at the World Championships in Glasgow and her world ranking has been on the slide a little of late as she now sits at number 13 - although that is partly because she missed most of the world-cup events last year. Perhaps indications she could be finding form again after finishing 4th at the last world-cup event last month. 

Sacha Pardoe - World number 21 and like Worthington has only competed in a couple of world-cup events and has finished in top-20 both times. 

[Rafa Maciel 1,593]

Sport Climbing

 

 

There are 38 quotas available across boulder/lead and speed events - 12 for boulder/lead and 7 in speed for the men and the same for the women's competition. Toby Roberts secured the European quota for boulder/lead.

 

 

 

Speed

Team GB won't have any entries in the speed events.

 

 

 

Boulder/Lead

 

Men's Qualifiers:

Hamish Mcarthur - World number 30. Finished 35th in the 2023 World Championships. Has had a number of decent results on lead but tends to struggle on the boulder courses.

Max Milne - World number 35. Didn't really compete in the world cup events last year but did manage to finish 49th in the World Championships. 

Jack MacDougal - World number 43. Backed up his 22nd place from World Championships with a creditable 17th place at the European qualifier. Has been able to put in some decent performances on boulder but looks like he tends to struggle a little on the lead wall.

James Pope - World number 50. Finished in 41st place at the World Championships but didn't manage to break into the top-20 of any events in 2023.

 

 

Women's Qualifiers:

Molly Thompson-Smith - World number 21. Had some injury issues last year which kept her out of the European qualifier. Secured multiple top-10 finishes on lead and was 12th in the World Championships. 

Erin McNiece - World number 50. Finished 35th in the World Championships before competing in the European qualifier where she finished 18th. 

[Rafa Maciel 1,593]

Breaking

 

 

There are 20 quotas available - 10 for the men and 10 for women.

 

Men's Qualifiers:

B-Boy Kid Karam - World number 32 and 16th in Olympic ranking list. Finished 8th at World Championships, 5th at European Games and 8th at European Championships.

B-Boy Sunni - World number 19. Finished 20th in Olympic ranking list. 21st at World Championships, 10th at European Games and 17th at European Championships. 

B-Boy Sheku - World number 24 and 28th in Olympic ranking list. Finished 13th at European Championships. 

 

Women's Qualifiers:

No Brits in the qualifying event. 

[Orangehair43 251]

I didn’t think they was any GB people even attempting to qualify. 

[Rafa Maciel 1,593]

Skateboarding

 

 

There are 88 quotas available across park and street events - 22 for park and 22 for street for both men and women. I should point out that this does include the host and universality quotas, so perhaps more accurate to say there are 20 quotas in each event available.

 

 

Park

 

 

Men's Qualifiers:

Tommy Calvert - Currently ranked 28th and carrying forward 8,439 points to the OQS. On an adjusted basis, Calvert would be 21st, so it is possible that he could be in a qualifying position if the host quota is reallocated. To be safe though, it would be better if he could move up the rankings a little - he's currently about 2,500 points behind the last quota spot. Worth keeping an eye on performances of  Rune Glifberg and  Tyler Edtmayer as Calvert really needs to outperform both of these guys to be in the hunt for the last quota spot.

George O'Neill - With 3,301 points, he currently sits 38th in the rankings so realistically, unless he can get a top-10 finish in the OQS events, he probably has too much to do to be able to get a quota.

Andrew MacDonald - Currently 40th in the rankings with just 3,056 points so probably won't be figuring in the race for a quota.

 

Women's Qualifiers:

Sky Brown - Injury and an attempt to qualify in surfing limited the number of events that she took part in, but she is still 3rd in the ranking and carries forward 130,000 points. Barring absolute disaster, she should safely secure a quota.

Lola Tambling - Currently ranked 13th and carries forward 46,261 points to the OQS. If we work on the basis that the top-20 will qualify, then Tambling has a cushion of around 27,000 points so she is well placed to take a quota.

Lilly Strachan - Currently ranked 32nd, carrying forward 7,192 points to the OQS. On an adjusted basis she is just outside the top 20 and is about 5,000 points short of the last quota spot so realistically, she'd need to knock it out the park in the OQS events if she was hoping to get a 3rd spot for GB.

 

 

Street

 

Men's Qualifiers:

Joe Hinson - Is ranked 37th with 10,094 points to carry forward to OQS. On an adjusted basis, he would be 27th but even so, he is still about 15,000 points adrift of the quota race so will need some pretty impressive performances in the OQS if he is to move up in the rankings. 

 

Women's Qualifiers:

No British qualifiers.

 

 

[mpjmcevoy 362]

Great summary Rafa.

 

I think GBR might do OK here; I'm actually quite hopeful in BMX freestyle and women's Park skateboard - even 3 is not beyond the bounds of possibility in the latter, as I think Strachen is better than her ranking. Think GBR COULD pick up a handful of '1 quotas' too in men's park, men's breaking and women's Boulder and Lead.

 

When you add this event to the Boxing, it seems the IOC are increasingly stretching their remit out from the Games simpliciter and into the qualifications - and for the IOC that makes good sense, gives them much more narrative control - and it's a win win for these slightly fringe urban sports. Istanbul 2027 is also making noises about giving the EOC (essentially Europe's end of IOC) much more input in qualification for LA 2028, which will both give IOC more of this power, and raise the importance of Continental Games, which IMHO IOC should make a priority from its own standpoint.

[Rafa Maciel 1,593]

Ahead of the competition getting underway tomorrow, some positive news to bump this thread up the list - Sascha Pardoe, who will be competing in the Women's  BMX Freestyle, secured 3rd place at last weekend's UCI World Cup event in Montpellier. Let's hope that is a positive omen for the days ahead. 

[Rafa Maciel 1,593]

Not the greatest of starts to OQS - Sky Brown has pulled out of the skateboarding qualifying event in Shanghai to recover from knee injury. She hopes to return for Budapest leg of the competition. 

[Rafa Maciel 1,593]

Lily Strachan first Brit to compete at the OQS scoring 49.55 for her first run before posting marginal improvement to 50.08. She couldn't improve on that in the 3rd run so she finished 4th in her group and is currently sitting in 5th place overall with a further 22 skaters to compete.