Rafa Maciel

Decent start for the British women in Italy - 41.866 on vault. That's 0.7 more than they scored in Antwerp last year but about 0.9 less than their score in Liverpool.

Big British contingent competing in the 2-day IFAM Outdoor meet in at the end of May. Starting with the 100m, Joy Eze, Success Eduan, Diani Walker and Leonie Ashmeade will compete in the women's race whilst Romell Glave and Korede Awe will be in the men's race. Over 200m, Success Eduan and Louise Evans are scheduled to compete alongside Jeriel Quainoo, Joe Ferguson and Thomas Somers. Charlie Dobson, Joe Brier, Lewis Davey, Charlie Carvell, Dan Putnam and Toby Harries will all run the 400m. Hayley McLean, Jess Tappin and Ese Okoro will all compete in the women's 400m hurdles whilst Seamus Derbyshire, Alastair Chalmers, Chris McAlister, Maranga Mokaya, Tyri Donovan and Josh Faulds will compete in the men's event. In the sprint hurdles, David King, Tom Wilcock and Miguel Perera will run in the 110m hurdles with Jenna Blundell, Alicia Barrett and Isabel Wakefield will compete over 100m hurdles. In the distance events, Zak Seddon is down to compete in the 3000m steeplechase whilst Tom Mortimer goes in the 5000m. Finally, Owen Heard will be competing in the pole vault. That's just a selection of the Brits on the start lists

Seems to be quite heavy on quotas for judo and taekwondo - almost 1/3 of quotas going to just 2 sports.

Looks like they've given up on getting Sam Hall into a continental quota spot - he could be injured, but from what I can see, he's not scheduled to compete again before the end of the qualifying window as fat as I can see. Lachlan Moorhead has 2 more competitions - he's in the Dushanbe Grand Slam this weekend, before travelling to Abu Dhabi where he will be 1 of only 2 British men competing in the World Championships. Moorhead is currently about 500 points short of a guaranteed quota spot. His potential discard scores are 112 and 120 so realistically needs top-8 finishes in both events to get into a quota spot. This weekend, Moorhead is up against Sayfidin Sayfidinzova in the round of 32. If he gets through that, he would face the winner of Maarten de Ridder or Zaur Dvalashvili. Like Moorhead, Jamal Petgrave is competing in both Tajikistan and Abu Dhabi. He is about a 1,000 points short of the automatic quotas so he will be relying on a continental quota if he wants to get to Paris - but we need to bear in mind that we can't get 2 continental quotas. He has better discards available - a 112 and a 10. This weekend he has drawn Sami Chouchi in the first round with Tselidis waiting in the round of 16. Rhys Thompson is competing in Dushanbe Grand Slam this weekend but is too far down the rankings to be in contention for a quota. Lele Nairne is in Tajikistan this weekend and will face Rahmiya Khanjarbekova in the first round. Currently Nekoda Smythe Davis is in the final qualifying spot for the 57Kg class but she isn't competing. Instead, she will be compete in Kazakhstan and Abu Dhabi. It's looking a little ominous in this class - I think there is every chance that Smythe-Davis will fall out of automatic qualifying spot and will need to rely on a continental quota - if that's the case, it would prevent the British guys from qualifying. Both Kelly Petersen-Pollard and Katie-Jemima Yeats-Brown are competing in Tajikistan before travelling to Kazakhstan and Abu Dhabi. his weekend, they are fighting Rasoanaivo Razafy and Issoufi respectively. Both are currently in qualifying spot and probably should be safe for a ticket to Paris. Finally, both Emma Reid and Nathalie Powell have been drawn in the same pool in Tajikistan. Reid will face Karla Prodan and Powell faces Darya Kantsavaya. Both Reid and Powell will go on to Kazakhstan and Abu Dhabi later this month.

Next stop of the team is in Salt Lake City this weekend with a double header of Speed and Boulder world Cup competitions. Good to see GB representation in the speed events with Matthew Fall competing. He competed at the European Olympic qualifier last year and finished 22nd. He didn't compete much last year and is yet to break into the top-20 in a competition. Paris bound Toby Roberts heads up the team for the Boulder competition. He will be joined by Dayan Akhtar. Roberts will be aiming to improve on his 4th place finish at Keqiao last month. James Pope and Max Milne were originally registered to compete, but it looks like they have withdrawn - probably to focus on their prep for the OQS which kicks off in Shanghai the following week. On the women's side, two new names in the frame - Lucy Garlick and Eugenie Lee. 17 year-old Garlick recently won a European Youth Cup event, but this will be just her 2nd Boulder World Cup event. Can't find any previous results for Lee. Like Pope and Milne, Erin McNiece and Molly Thompson-Smith have chosen not to compete in Salt Lake City as they continue their preparations for the OQS.

Another direct quota event coming up next week - 8-9th May will be the European Canoe Sprint Regatta in Szeged and GB could/should have chances to qualify a couple of boats. Deborah Kerr has been selected in women's K1 500m and she will team up with Emma Russell in the women's K2 500m. The Reid/Russel pairing finished 9th in last year's world championships and with most of the main European nations qualified already, GB should be in the mix for 1 of the 2 quotas available. Katie Reed is back trying to get to her second Olympics. She will compete in the women's C1 200m. On the men's side, Dan Johnson will go in the men's K1 1000m whilst James Russell and Trevor Thomson will be in the men's K2 500m.

Next direct quotas on offer for GB should be this weekend at the European Archery Championships in Essen

We didn't see much of it in Glasgow as it was only used in the ill-fated men's team pursuit squad, but GB Cycling officially launched their 2024 Olympic Track Bike yesterday. Paris track bike officially launched ahead of Paris 2024 Olympic Games (britishcycling.org.uk)

Charlie Aldridge, Cameron Orr, Evie Richards, Annie Last and Isla Short selected for the UEC MTB European Championship next week in Romania.

The way that she tells the story is that her decision wasn't driven by not being selected for the qualifier but rather the fact that she was told she wasn't even going to be considered for selection. She had expected there to be internal assessment involving herself, Walsh and another boxer which ultimately didn't happen. If that is the case, can't help thinking that it was an avoidable situation.

As was the case with the 1st boxing qualifier, an extra day of competition has been added for the second qualifying tournament in Bangkok. Competition now scheduled to run between 24-May-2-Jun. Current estimate is that more than 630 athletes will be registered to compete.

May is going to be a hectic month for athletes as the hunt for Olympic qualifying standards heats up so mark your cards early for some performances to look forward to: 4-May: USATF Throws Festival - Anna Purchase will compete in the hammer and Divine Oladipo competes in the shot put. 4-May: Meeting National Est Lyonnais - Elliot Giles and Archie Davies will both compete in the 800m. 10-May: Wanda Diamond League Doha - Morgan Lake opens her outdoor season in the high jump whilst Jemma Reekie competes in the 800m. Indoor world champion Molly Caudery opens her outdoor season in the pole vault. 12-May: Horst Mandl Memorial - Reporting this with slight trepidation given I got burned by WA earlier but it looks like Katarina Johnson Thompson will get her outdoor season underway in the javelin and 100m hurdles. 15-May: Savona International Meeting - Keely Hodgkinson will run the 400m whilst Jessie Knight will compete in the 400m hurdles. Charlie Dobson will be in the men's 400m and Scott Lincoln will be in the shot put. 16-May: Meeting International de Montreuil - Ben WIlliams competes in the triple jump whilst Eliott Giles will run the 800m. On the women's side, Jemma Reekie is listed as competing in 800m, Erin Wallace and Ellie Baker are due to compete in the 1500m. We should also see Lorraine Ugen go in the long jump. Interestingly, we may also see the return of Laura Zialor in the high jump in her first competition since rupturing her Achilles at the European Team Champs last year. 18-May: USATF Los Angeles Grand Prix - Alex Botterill and Jake Wightman will both compete in the 800m. Zak Seddon and Lizzie Bird are entered for the 3000m Steeplechase although worth pointing out that Bird was scheduled to run last week and was DNS.

Not a qualifying event, but the GB Diving Championships - basically the Olympic Trials - take place 23-26th May.

New PB of 59.95m for Bekah Walton in round 4 of Javelin in Huelva Surely she'll break the 60m barrier before too long - who knows, it may even be this evening

Anna Henderson has sustained broken collarbone in crash at the women's Vuelta yesterday.

Not sure how, but manage to stay ahead of in the latest ranking release, maintaining a gap of about 160 points. did overtake GB and have opened a lead of 230 points. We could really do with 2 of our guys getting through to the world champs final next month to keep us in the hunt for that second quota spot.

The comments on Facebook and Twitter have certainly been....salty to say the least. I knew Broadhurst had travelled with the squad to Colorado for the training camp, but I wasn't aware that she was due to compete there and hadn't been able to make the weight - assuming the comments online are correct.

Max Stapley secures his first win at World Cup level taking top spot on the podium in Chengdu this weekend.

Triathlon World Cup - Chengdu Men's Elite: 1.) Max Stapley 2.) Jonas Schomburg 3.) Tayler Reid Women's Elite: 1.) Julie Derron 2.) Tilda Mannson 3.) Roksana Slupek

I definitely think we are in a much better position going into Paris compared to where we were ahead of Tokyo. That's more based on the results from last season rather than what we saw this week. We always do well at the Euros and this week's racing didn't have the top Dutch crews and the conditions and lane reordering can distort the results to an extent. I probably won't make medal predictions until after Lucerne when we will hopefully see the rest of the global crews in action, but at the moment, I am feeling bullish on our prospects and could easily see the team taking 6 medals and possible stretch target of 8 with half of those being gold. On the women's eight, there is probably a limit to what they can do and personally I don't see them changing the line-up dramatically. Given the early season form of the women's four, they're unlikely to want to mess with them. That would just leave them with the pair of Edwards and Brew to potentially switch in. I think they will ultimately leave the crews as they are and will keep faith that they will be able to build their results as they go through the rest of the year. Keep saying it, but the World Cup in Lucerne is going to be key.

I don't think that's right - that's based on the world ranking which I think is based on their best 8 results within the last 12 months whereas the Olympic ranking is based on their top 12 results since 1st January 2023. I've seen 3 different ranking lists all coming from FIVB and each showing a different picture but I think this is the version that most media outlets are using (Provisional Olympic Ranking tab): RankingMen (fivb.com) In that version Bello brothers are in 31st place with 5740 points. Grimalt/Grimalt are in the last qualifying spot with 7080 points. So, the gap is about 1300 on that measure but I could be completely wrong.

Just watched back a couple of the races form this weekend and my one area of concern for the British team would be lack of a sprint finish. All of the crews were routinely under-rating the rest of the field and for the most part, they were able to do that whilst matching or exceeding the speed of the competition but when the races got into the last quarter of the race, nations like Italy and Romania upped their rate in 42-44 whereas the Brits rarely upped their rate to 40+.

Am seeing on Twitter that Mouhamadou Fall has been banned for 9 months after testing positive for heptaminol last year but can't find second source confirmation. Anyone know if that's confirmed?

This has been going under the radar but it looks like we're heading for a big reduction in the size of our Badminton team going into Paris. Kirsty Gilmour is safe in women's singles and we should get a spot in the men's doubles with Lane/Vendy but that could be it - no mixed doubles, no women's doubles and no men's singles (although that's not as surprising given the retirement of Toby Penty).

Thoughts on the team announcement: Savannah Stubley - Gets the nod over Demi-Jade Resztan for the 50Kg. Stubley got to the semi-final in Colorado before losing out to Monique Suraci whereas Resztan lost her first bout. Stubley also competed in Busto-Arsizio but lost her first fight. Hopefully she can make more of a fight of it in Bangkok and be in the mix for one of the four quotas available. Elise Glynn - No surprise in the 57Kg - Glynn got to the quarter-finals in Busto-Arsizio and recently won the USA Boxing International Invitational in Colorado where she beat Paris bound Jucielen Romeu in the final. The qualifying conditions in Bangkok should be easier as there are 4 quotas available compared to the two that were on offer in Italy. Amy Broadhurst - Possibly the most controversial selection in the squad. Broadhurst gets the nod over both Shona Whitwell and Gemma Richardson for the 60Kg. Whitwell has had 2 opportunities to get to Paris and has lost in her opening bout both times. She competed in Colorado earlier this month and lost in the first round so it was always going to be difficult to justify selecting her for a third time. Gemma Richardson could feel a little hard done by - she got to the final in Colorado before losing to Yang Wen Lu. It's a bold decision by the selectors and I hope it works out for them. Kiaran Macdonald - No surprise in the 51Kg class. Macdonald got to the quota fight in Italy and came up short against Bibossinov. He should go into the 2nd qualifier as one of the favourites to get a quota if he can get a decent draw. Owain Harris-Allan - Like Kieran Macdonald, Harris-Allan got to the quota fight in the 57Kg class in Busto-Arsizio. He got to the final in Colorado where he came up short against Luiz Oliveira - the same fighter who defeated him in the quota match in Italy. Patris Mughalzai - He gets the nod over Reese Lynch in the 63.5Kg class. Mughalzai gets a second chance to book his spot in Paris after reaching the round of 32 in Busto-Arsizio. It's disappointing for Lynch who was making strong comeback after injury at last year's European Games but perhaps not surprising giving the pair fought in the semi-final of the Colorado event earlier this month. Lewis Richardson - Selectors have kept the faith with Richardson who is picked ahead of Harris Akbar at 71Kg. Richardson fought in Italy but his campaign didn't last long as he was beaten in the first round by Dev Nishant. Hopefully he can get a more favourable draw in Bangkok so that he has a chance to grow into the tournament. Ramtin Musah - This is probably the most surprising selection as Musah is picked over Taylor Bevan for the 80Kg class. OK so Bevan lost in the first round in Busto-Arsizio but in Colorado, he got to the semi-finals whereas Musah lost in the first round. Overall then I think we're sending a pretty strong squad and I can see us getting 3-5 quotas if we can get decent draws.