Rafa Maciel

Last up - the new sports for LA. For the most part these awards are unlikely to be game changing for them so hopefully the already have established programs in place.

On top of the established sports, all of the development sports saw an uplift in their funding although I am struggling to see why wrestling warranted an extra £130k

Funding for LA has been confirmed by UK Sport. With the exception of athletics and canoeing, pretty much every sport has seen their funding increase - with some unusual decisions. Greatest investment to date will power success and inspire impact on journey to LA 2028 | UK Sport

Expecting to have funding announcement for individual sports from UK Sport this week. The Times already reporting that UK Athletics has had a £2mln cut with significant changes to salaries and bonuses paid to athlete coaches.

Not to be for the GB Women as they go down to a 1-0 defeat by

GB's women's water polo team are hoping to end the year on a high in the World Cup Division 2 event in Turkey. Having eased passed yesterday 29-4, they have just beaten hosts 14-8 to secure their place in the quarter-finals. On the men's side, they'll be taking to the pool later in the week. They've be drawn in Group B against and

Winner takes it all situation for GB women's ice hockey team later today. After dispatching 3-2 on Thursday they racked up a 3-0 win over yesterday to maintain unbeaten record in the group. This afternoon they will face off against at 16:00 - whoever wins will top the group and will proceed to the final qualification tournament in February.

To be fair, I think both Giles and Renshall have been ranked #1 within the last year and the current ranking for most of the squad is depressed by the fact that a lot of them haven't competed in the second half of the year. Overall, pretty much everyone on the list is competitive at the Continental Open level. At the Grand Prix level, most of the women in the podium and podium potential group would be in the mix for either a medal or extended podium. Both Giles and Renshall were pretty consistent in the run up to Paris when it came to the Grand Slam events. Nobody on the men's side covered themselves in glory this year and unfortunately nobody performed anywhere near their best when it mattered at the Olympics. I'd guess that the big benefit of being in the WCPP is access to the central support and training facilities at the National Training Centre.

Ahead of the 2025 season kicking off, GB Judo have announced some changes to their performance squad Going into 2024, the Olympic World Class Performance Program was: Olympic Podium: Chelsie Giles (-52Kg): World Ranking 8 Nekoda Smythe-Davis (-57Kg): World Ranking 35 Lucy Renshall (-63Kg): World Ranking 14 Jemima Yeats-Brown (-70Kg): World Ranking 19 Olympic Podium Potential: Kelly Peterson-Pollard (-70Kg): World Ranking 18 Emma Reid (-78Kg): World Ranking 14 Natalie Powell (-78Kg): World Ranking 38 Stuart McWatt (-90Kg): World Ranking 110 Lachlan Moorhead (-81Kg): World Ranking 35 Eric Ham (-73Kg): World Ranking 95 Jamal Petgrave (-90Kg): World Ranking 54 Rhys Thompson (-100Kg): World Ranking 38 Samuel Hall (-66Kg): World Ranking 72 Amy Platten (-48Kg): World Ranking 174 Shelley Ludford (-78Kg): World Ranking 103 Ollie Barratt (-100Kg): World Ranking 95 Charlie Young (-66Kg): World Ranking 69 Harry Lovell-Hewitt (-100Kg): World Ranking 82 Wesley Greenidge (+100Kg): World Ranking 87 Max Gregory (-100Kg): World Ranking 187 Michael Fryer (-66Kg): World Ranking 66 Olympic Programme: Sian Bobrowska (-52Kg): World Ranking 188 Caitlin Barber (-48Kg): World Ranking 167 Isobel Kitchen (-66Kg): World ranking 212 Lewis Fryer Summer Shaw (-48Kg): World Ranking 106 - Seems to be a lot of buzz about her and she's been flagged as 'one to watch.' Could/should definitely be in contention for the TB Squad for LA. Charlotte Jenman (-52Kg): World Ranking 282 Since the Olympics, 2 of the squad have annoucned their retirement from the sport: Stuart McWatt's retirement was confirmed at the beginning of last month. Unfortunately, a series of injuries meant he was never really able to realise his full potential. Natalie Powell's retirement was announced in October. Holding the honour of being the first British female judoka to be ranked world number 1, Powell was on Team GB at both Rio and Tokyo. New additions to the WCPP: Ben Levy (-73Kg): World Ranking 331 Ethan Nairne (-73Kg): World Ranking 138 Lola Hodson ( Chloe Link (-57Kg): World Ranking 168 Eryk Neumann (-81Kg): World Ranking 443 Charlotte Jenman - she's been announced as new addition but she was already on the sqaud according to the announcement made in Jan-24. Charlie Ayre (-60Kg) World Ranking 187 If the normal schedule applies, then British Judo should confirm the funding level for the team at some point next month.

Team Mouat remain undefeated at the European Curling championships having notched up wins against Switzerland, Norway, Netherlands and against an English team skipped by Moaut's brother. They should be able to extend that to 5 wins later today when they take on . Their first big challenge will come tomorrow when they take on . Team Morrison continues to frustrate with 2 wins and 3 losses to sit equal 5th overall. So far they've only managed to beat and but have lost to , and . They should be able to notch up a couple of wins in their matches as they'll face and before they finish up against and . Realistically, the best they can hope for is to finish with 5-4 record.

Doesn't that decision sit with World Athletics rather than the IOC?

After gold for the women in Pyeongchang, the guys follow it up with bronze for Matt Weston and silver for Marcus Wyatt. All-in-all, a pretty good day's work for the GB Skeleton team.

Tem GB's strong start to the winter sport season continues with Amelia Coltman taking gold in the opening race of the Skeleton World Cup in Pyeongchang with team-mate Freya Tarbit missing out on the podium by 0.02 seconds.

A bit late, but the GB women's team had a couple of matches in their qualifying campaign for the 2025 Women's EuroBasket tournament. They recorded a fairly comfortable win against 75-62 before suffering a frustrating defeat against . In an extremely tight game GB led by a point after the 1st quarter. They extended their lead to 5 points at half time and although they were pegged back, they went into the final quarter with a 2 point lead. Unfortunately, they lost the final quarter and ultimately fell to a 63-60 defeat. GB currently sit 2nd in their qualification group so they aren't automatically guaranteed to qualify for the next stage however they are one of the strongest 2nd placed teams and their last 2 group matches in February next year, are against teams that they have comfortably beaten already.

Unfortunately, it came too late for Paris, but the Bello brothers won the Elite 16 event in Rio this weekend. I could be wrong, but I think that is there first tournament win at the Elite16 level and with it, they have broken into the world's top 20. This should set them up to have a great start to 2025 gaining them direct entry to the Elite 16 level events without having to go through qualifying.