Jon

The first opportunity for Team GB to qualify athletes to the Milano Cortina 2026 Winter Olympics is coming up shortly. Earlier this year in February, the Men’s Ice Hockey Team successfully topped their Olympic Qualification pool, with victories over Romania, China and Serbia. This enabled them to progress to the final Olympic Qualification Tournament. The fixtures below: 29 August, 7.30pm - v 30 August, 3.30pm - v 1 September, 12.30pm - v The matches are being hosted in Denmark and the top of the pool wins the qualification spot. This is the only route to qualification.

Herrera/Gavira finished top of the pool, with the Bello Brothers second, meaning they progress to the knock out round. The next match is against Rotar/Gauthier-Rat tomorrow.

Just following on from this do people have any views or thoughts on calendars of events with Team GB involvement? I think it makes sense to start Road to Milano Cortina 26 and to LA28 threads to track Team GB qualifications to those Games. For Milano Cortina the Ice Hockey Men are in action for Olympic qualifiers later this month, so sooner than you might think! Should we include results or tournaments of the junior squads in the relevant sports thread? e.g Team GB U18s are currently competing in the European Championship. Should that go in a GB Handball thread, in a generic ‘team sports’ thread, in a generic ‘Junior Squads’ thread, or alternatively just nowhere at all!

Two of the boxing judges and referees (both Kazakh) were stood down during the Olympics due to corruption fears, only after they had judged/refereed almost 50 bouts. They were removed from duties prior to the medal bouts. Nine judges/referees at the tournament were included in the ‘high risk’ of corruption category by McClaren. https://www.thetimes.com/sport/boxing/article/two-boxing-officials-were-stood-down-midway-through-olympics-2cqzzpg8s

Some other Olympians we may lose prior to LA28: Lewis Richardson - quite open about his ambitions to go professional at some point Caden Cunningham - piece in the Guardian where he says he’s hungry for Gold if he stays in taekwondo, but he’s also interested in UFC and modelling so not committed to sticking around Also a bit of a post mortem about British Cycling’s performance here: https://www.theguardian.com/sport/article/2024/aug/12/team-gbs-olympic-cycling-campaign-never-caught-fire-despite-bright-start

Joe Choong - wasn’t keen on the possible format change to obstacle course in anyway and had floated switching to full time fencing. Blamed poor performance on his girlfriend not being selected by Team GB for the women’s pentathlon, so fear there is really some bad blood there. Kate French - ‘isn’t the ending I imagined’ sounds like she is finished with competing. Toby Roberts - said he looked forward to battling against Anaraku and Jakob in years to come so sounds like LA28 is in his sights. Emma Wilson - announced retirement due to competition format. Door left ajar if the format for windsurfing changes. Harry Hepworth - says he’ll be a medal contender next time and wants to specialise in rings.

Further media articles which bodes quite positively about the review work that will be undertaken across sports and reflections from Dame Grainger re the gold medal count: https://www.theguardian.com/sport/article/2024/aug/12/uk-sport-chair-happy-with-team-gb-medals-but-work-to-do-on-gold-count https://inews.co.uk/sport/olympics/team-gb-olympics-target-la-2028-funding-3223062 Also a target once more to try and get a men’s team to go in the football: https://www.bbc.co.uk/sport/olympics/articles/cpqjleg8p57o

Analysis of Team GB’s performance from the British Olympic Association in this piece in the Guardian: https://www.theguardian.com/sport/article/2024/aug/11/britains-performance-in-paris-should-be-celebrated-claim-team-gb-chiefs

Some updates on the performance of the junior squads over the FIBA European Championships. In terms of the Men: U20s (Division B) placed 8th out of 20 in 2023. This year placed 12th in out of 21. Previously used to compete in the top flight, but withdrew in 2020/21. U18s (Division B) placed 5th out of 22 in 2023. This year placed 19th out of 22. Previously used to compete in the top flight, but withdrew in 2020/21. U16s (Division B) placed 10th out of 21 in 2023. Competition is ongoing, GB currently has a 1 Win - 2 Loss scorecard, with matches coming up: 12 August - v 13 August - v Unlikely to progress to the quarter finals, but will aim to finish 3rd or 4th in the group to progress to the 9th-16th classification playoffs. In terms of the Women: U20s (Division B) placed 12th out of 17 in 2023. This year placed 7th out of 15. U18s (Division B) placed 12th out of 18 in 2023. This year placed 6th out of 18. U16s (Division B) placed 6th out of 20 in 2023. Competition starts this week, with the following matches: 16 August - v 17 August - v 19 August - v 20 August - v All matches are streamed on YouTube. Away from the junior squads, the Team GB women will shortly be in action for the 2026 Women’s Basketball World Cup Pre-Qualifying. The fixtures as follows: 19 August - v 21 August - v 22 August - v The top two in the pool progress to the semi finals. The top ranked team then progresses to the qualifying tournament for the World Cup. The Team GB 3x3 men are making their debut at the Europe Cup next week. They have a very tough pool with France and Latvia. Pool stage matches are taking place on 22 August.

1. Alex Yee’s heroic kick off in the last seconds of the Triathlon to take the Gold. 2. Bryony Page’s reaction to winning the Gold. 3. Thorpe and Shortman taking the Silver in the Artistic Swimming. A really lovely backstory and I think it must be so hard being the pioneer in your sport in the country. They have nobody to look to but themselves and I hope it will inspire lots of people to give it a go. Honourable mentions: Pidcock’s comeback in the Men’s BMX and Roberts realising he’d won Gold.

The last day of action continued in much the same vein as previous. The positive I think is that some sports may undertake a root and branch review, as Rowing did after Tokyo, which is certainly no bad thing. UK Sports targets: 50-70 medals - ACHIEVED 1/3 medals to be Gold - NOT ACHIEVED Top 5 Place - NOT ACHIEVED

Team GB finishes 7th in the medal table.

Medal everyday of these Olympics. Carrying on from Tokyo 2020, our unbroken medal streak is at 30 days. Emily Campbell is guaranteed a medal in the weightlifting, so we’ll be at least 65 which is one better than Tokyo. If Carlin takes a medal in the keiran, we’d finish on 66 which is one better than London.

Sigh. A disappointing end to the Games.

Finucane out in straight defeats and Bryson failed to score any bonus fencing points.

And to top off the great morning Bryson took two faults in the pentathlon. We might fail to medal today.

Illness.

Kate French withdraws from the Pentathlon. She sat 3rd overall and was the defending Olympic Champion. As Hassan wins Gold for the Netherlands in the Marathon, makes it a trickier path to hold 6th on the table.

Really sound points made. That artistic swimming medal is one of the stories of the games for me - they have such a great backstory with their mums competing for GB back in the 90s. Hope it gets the sport some exposure in the country. Climbing looks to be in a good place. I do wonder why we don’t manage to get anyone through on the speed side of things, something to maybe consider. There’s no doubt though the lead/bouldering is absolutely thrilling to watch. Cycling it’s tricky to say without Kate Archibald what could have been. The Canadian team have been dealing with a nasty sickness bug and you do wonder if something is going around the velodrome, much as it did the swimming teams. Boxing is a rebuilding cycle but also I think we and many other counties were screwed out of medal chances by dodgy judging. Wouldn’t be bothered if it didn’t feature in LA. Modern Pentathlon - Choong has already said he wants to take up fencing full time and will leave when obstacle courses are brought in. He has also said he didn’t want to compete and he’s upset because his girlfriend wasn’t selected. Obviously a lot going on there and I think he needs to take some time away to figure out what he wants. Brown seemed a solid competitor who could develop, but questions over the format going forward. Sailing is really disappointing. Micky Beckett was tipped as the next Ben Ainslie by Shirley Robertson. As you say an overall disappointing regatta salvaged only by Ellie Aldridge on a new discipline. Lessons to be learned. Major positive is rowing. Abysmal in Tokyo, yet here they are in Paris as the sport providing us with the most Gold medals. Proves that lessons can be learned when needed. They’ll go away and learn their lessons I’m sure, on to LA2028!

Seb Coe will go for it. Not sure he’ll get it though.

Athletics: Any Brits in the top twenty? YES Ceremonies: Who is/are the flagbearer(s)? ANDY MURRAY & KJT Cycling Track: Any golds? YES Modern Pentathlon: Gold? YES Weightlifting: Does Campbell get a medal? YES

Dutch disqualified from the madison (not that it effects any of the standings) and fined €900 for improper conduct. Perhaps van Schip may also face a lengthy professional ban for such dangerous and blatant behaviour. van Schip’s aggression, Telgenkamp’s disrespect and van de Velde… aren’t the Dutch embarrassed?

France sits 1st and 5th in the women’s pentathlon, we sit 3rd and 4th. They also have another shot in the women’s basketball tomorrow. Germany’s remaining chances are now in the women’s cycling sprint (Friedrich) and the men’s handball. Netherlands have opportunities across the cycling. Favourites in the keiran I reckon, but an opportunity in the women’s sprint also. South Korea has opportunities in women’s pentathlon (sitting 6th and 8th). Also has a strong contender in the weightlifting (though likely not able to challenge China for the gold - could put pressure on Emily Campbell for the Silver though). Women’s ominium has Dutch, German and French interest - think the American is tipped though? Realistically Japan and Australia are unassailable. France also I think at this point out of reach - even if we took Gold in the women’s sprint and the women’s pentathlon, and a silver in the weightlifting, we’d still not overtake France. That’s also presuming they don’t make any further gains. The challenge would be to maintain 6th.

I hadn’t realised that the expectation of UK Sport was that a third of medals won would be Gold. https://www.skysports.com/olympics/news/12040/13175218/paris-2024-olympics-uk-sport-expects-team-gb-to-win-at-least-50-medals-and-top-five-finish-in-medal-table

It feels like every time we’ve had a shot at gold it’s slipped through our fingers. Silver nothing to be sniffed at though and Caden is young enough to have another crack at it in LA28. All hopes on Finucane or the Modern Pentathlon to bring us to a nice round 15 golds. If we don’t get there hey ho it’s disappointing but overall medal count is impressive and it would be great to get to above the total medals of Tokyo. Before people jump down my throat, I’m not saying our performance is disappointing, I’m not diminishing any of the athlete’s performances, or any of the amazing medals hard earned. I’m just saying it’s unfortunate every time we’ve just needed a little bit of luck to land the gold it seems to have never gone our way.