Rafa Maciel

One less name in the mix for the men's individual 10m platform spots with Matty Lee undergoing spinal surgery this week. Matty Lee: Team GB diver to miss Paris Olympics after spinal surgery - BBC Sport

Possible that we might lose another key swimmer from the trials. It is being reported on another site that unfortunately Medi Harris's mother has just passed away.

It's weird that the selection policy doesn't have any allowance for illness or injury going into the trials - for example UK Athletics allow athletes to skip the trials if they are injured/ill provided they have been reviewed by federation medical teams. For Anderson, I suspect that British Swimming will be willing to give her time to recover and show form - the good news from her perspective is that in her events, GB don't have multiple swimmers who are likely to be under the BST. Anna Hopkin will probably take the 100m title with Freya Colbert favourite in the 200m, but there isn't an obvious second athlete who you'd think would get below the BST. The more tricky question for the selectors will be around the relays - the 2024 season's best for the top 4 athletes is outside of the GB nomination time for both the 4x100 and 4x200. If the top 4 are outside the BST, hopefully British Swimming will be pragmatic and won't make a decision about the relay quotas until Anderson is given a chance to prove her form/fitness.

Can you please stop this endless BS because your contribution to these boards is beyond tedious and is nothing more than tin-foil hat conspiracy theories. There is absolutely no evidence that British Swimming want to cut the numbers. As per every major competition, they have set a team size in their selection document. This cycle it has been set at 30 which is the same as the target team size for Rio, Tokyo and Fukuoka. Sure, the revised selection document for Tokyo increased the team size to 35 - but that to accommodate Covid-19. If the squad don't hit the selection times that have been laid down, the evidence would indicate that the selectors are willing to flex their selection policy - after all that's exactly what they did at last year's trials for Fukuoka. As for the "optics" that you keep spouting about - clearly British Swimming are fine not having a GB entry in events otherwise they wouldn't be setting selection times that are lower than the official Olympic qualifying time.

Women's 200m Breaststroke: Nobody has achieved the BST within the last 18 months but at least 3 of our top 8 have registered PBs so far this year, cutting at least 3 seconds off their time. Angharad Evans probably starts as marginal favourite for the event - she's in PB shape and has cut over 8 seconds from her time already this year - but this could well be an event where we have no representation in Paris. Women's 100m Breaststroke: Angharad Evans is the swimmer in form having secured the OQT at the BUCS Championships at the end of February before following it up with the BST at the Edinburgh International Meet earlier this month. Kara Hanlon also well placed to get the second spot, but she would need a new PB to secure the BST.

UK Athletics really could learn a thing or two from British Swimming . Whilst athletics struggle to find a broadcast home, both BBC and Channel 4 will be showing the British Swimming Championships next week. BBC will have live coverage of the finals - not as a linear broadcast, but will be on iPlayer and online. Channel 4 will stream live coverage of both the finals and the morning heats. BBC are also confirmed to be providing coverage of the British Diving Championships

If I read that correctly, (and by read it, I mean Google translated it correctly) there is budget allocated by central government for cycling as elite sport and applications for support can be submitted and approved by the minister. Does that mean that the Polish track cycling team applied for financial support and were rejected?

I guess they've still got time to figure out a solution.

The US College outdoor track and field season is kicking off in earnest this week so we're likely to see a few Brits in action. I haven't gone through the full entry list but from what I've seen so far, there are at least a couple of our potential contenders for Paris places taking part in this weekend's Florida Relays: Men Rhys Allen - Discus Isaac Delaney - Shot Put Daniel Falode - Triple Jump Kenneth Ikeji - Hammer Matthew Hudson-Smith - 200m Josh Zeller - 110m Hurdles Efekemo Okoro - 400m Women Alix Still - High Jump Temi Ojora - Triple Jump Alix Still - Javelin Jodie Williams - 200m

Provisional entries are out for the final Nations Cup event in Milton (12-Apr - 14-Apr) As always, take the UCI entry list with a pinch of salt as they have been wrong in the past in terms of the actual line-ups used... Men's Team Pursuit: No team entered and also no or will be favourites for the event as they send one of their strongest teams - Bigham / Tanfield / Vernon / Charlton not going with their A-Team favouring Lamon / Boscaro / Giaimi / Moro although Consonni and Viviani are in the squad for Madison so would be available for TP. Men's Team Sprint: No so will be a relatively straightforward win for and all fighting for the last quota spot and competing with pretty strong squads - and have the same squad from 2023 World Champs whilst have the European bronze medalist team. Realistically the battle will come down to v with Poland needing to finish at least 1 place higher than Canada to take the final quota. Women's Team Sprint: No and a second string squad with no Hinze or Friedrich. It's a case of now or never for - they need to take advantage of the absence of the big 2 and get themselves into the medal rides and hope that finish mid-table. Women's Team Pursuit: No or will likely be favourites as they are sending their top team - Archibald / Knight / Morris / Barker with Evans available as sub. Think they may want to put a marker down given they've seen New Zealand take the last two NC events Other Thoughts: Ellesse Andrews is back after her crash in Adelaide. With no and the top missing, she'll likely start as favourite in the Keirin, but it won't tell us as much as we would have liked about her medal prospects. Martha Bayona is back in both the Sprint and the Keirin after less than stellar results in Adelaide. Katie Archibald is down for both the Madison (with Neah Evans) and the Omnium. Women's Omnium will be missing Ally Wollaston and Lotte Kopecky but the gold and silver medalist from Glasgow are in the field alongside the silver medalist from Tokyo so it is still pretty stacked.

I think you've got the ranking points right it's just the placings that had me confused.

Is this confirmed as it doesn't tie in with my interpretation of the qualification document. Although Italy is auto qualified as host, I think they still get awarded the qualifying points from the world champs. The qualification document says if Italy don't qualifying in the top eight of the discipline, then they qualify automatically through the allocation of host quotas and only the top 7 from the rankings would qualify - so to me, that implies that Italy should be counted in the ranking. Ignore me - see you haven't awarded the 10 points

Swiss Bike Cup Men's Elite 1.) Jordan Sarrou 2.) Joshua Dabbau 3.) Adrien Boichis Women's Elite 1.) Pauline Ferrand Prevot 2.) Jolanda Neff 3.) Alessandra Keller

Bello brothers take bronze medal in Recife. Unfortunately, they weren't able to replicate their pool win over Diaz/Alayo in the semi-final, going down in straight sets 21-18 / 21-15 but in the small final, they took out 5th seeds Evans / Budinger in 3 sets (26-24 / 15-21 / 15-13)

Diving finish the second world cup in Berlin with a pretty respectable tally of 3 golds, a silver and a bronze. Mixed Team - Gold: Would be great to see this becoming part of the Olympic program. Men's 10m Synchro - Gold: Personally I'd say this was the standout performance of the competition for GB. OK, so there wasn't a Chinese pair involved, but Daley and Williams scored 465.00 which I think is their best result since Daley returned and is only 7 points short of what they scored to take gold in Tokyo. I'm not suggesting that they are going to defend their title in Paris, but if they can replicate this kind of performance, they'll certainly be in the medal mix and maybe the Chinese pairing will feel a little pressure. Men's 3m Synchro - Gold: Laugher and Harding benefitting from a lack of Chinese pair and a mistake by Mexico. Nevertheless, they posted a score that would have put them on the podium in the last 2 world champs and at the Tokyo Olympics. Neither Spain nor Italy have been able to replicate the kind of performance that took them to the podium in Doha so when we get to Paris, the medal fight is probably going to come down to China, Mexico and GB. Women's 10m Platform - Silver: In Montreal, Andrea Spendolini-Sirieix was within 26 points of catching Quan but in Berlin, the gap had widened to over 90 points. She didn't have a great inward 3 and 1/2 and her back 1 and 1/2 with 2 and 1/2 twists was also down on previous competitions. I really like to see her upping her degree of difficulty and getting rid of the reverse 2 and 1/2 in favour of something DD of 3.0+ but don't think she'll have time to do that before Paris. Women's 3m Synchro - Bronze: Another event where we were missing the Chinese. Harper and Mew Jensen making steady progress this year with 295.59 being a seasons best and it is a score that would put them in the mix for a minor medal in Paris. Women's 3m Individual - Mew Jensen 5th & Grace Reid 9th: Reid started off pretty strongly and was in medal contention after the first couple of dives but was the lowest scorer in round 3 and couldn't recover. Mew Jensen had a problem with her second round dive which knocked back what was otherwise a pretty solid performance. Men's 10m Platform - Noah Williams 7th: Williams had a great qualifying but couldn't repeat it in the final with his score dropping by around 60 points. Williams was on course to top qualifying until his last dive whilst in the final, it went wrong early on and he just wasn't able to recover. More worrying at this stage, is the fact that his final dive - the forward 4 and 1/2 - is becoming a bit of an issue as it failed to score more that 40.00 in either the final or qualifying. Men's 3m Individual - Daniel Goodfellow 5th & Jack Laugher 9th: Unfortunately, Laugher wasn't able to bring his excellent form from the synchro event into the individual competition. He was the lowest scoring diver in 2 of the rounds and only 1 of his dives was scored in the top 3. He's probably still in the mix for medal in Paris, but there are questions around his consistency since he came back from injury. Goodfellow had a pretty solid competition and was in contention for a medal until the last 2 rounds. His last 2 dives are his most difficult, and he didn't execute them the way he would want so ultimately dropped down the field.

2024 Diving World Cup Leg 2 - Berlin Women's 10m Platform Final: 1.) Hongchan Quan - 432.80 2.) Andrea Spendolini Sirieix - 339.10 3.) Caeli McKay - 331.30 ----------------------------------------------------------- 4.) Delaney Schnell - 326.10 5.) Matsuri Arai - 313.05 6.) Sarah Jodoin Di Maria - 312.85 6.) Elena Wassen - 312.85 8.) Elaena Dick - 308.60 9.) Maia Biginelli - 291.60 10.) Valeria Antolino - 278.05 11.) Pauline Alexandra Pfeif - 274.20 12.) Emily Meaney - 241.10 The gulf in the scores of the Chinese divers compared to the rest of the world is at its most extreme in this event. Quan could basically have sat out a round whilst having a mani-pedi and still won the competition.

2024 Diving World Cup Leg 2 - Berlin Men's 3m Springboard Final: 1.) Zongyuan Wang - 505.90 2.) Osmar Olvera Ibarra - 476.70 3.) Lars Rudiger - 463.20 ----------------------------------------------- 4.) Jiuyuan Zheng - 450.60 5.) Daniel Goodfellow - 447.40 6.) Alexis Jandard - 420.75 7.) Shixin Li - 419.65 8.) Moritz Wesemann - 413.60 9.) Jack Laugher - 395.80 10.) Kurtis Mathews - 394.75 11.) Tyler Downs - 388.00 12.) Lorenzo Marsaglia - 341.85 A couple of points I'd pick out from the result: Rudiger showed the power of having an "easier" program, but performing it really consistently. Although he barely scored higher than an 8 (he had two 8.5s from 42 judges scores), he also only had 1 score less than 7. Osmar Olvera Ibarra's medal was won with his last dives. He scored 93.10 and 87.75 for his two most difficult dives. Without those two stellar scores, he was heading for a mid-table finish. Jack Laugher had a real off-day. He had four rounds where his dive score was in the bottom half and in two rounds he was the absolute lowest scorer. Daniel Goodfellow was on course for a good score a possible podium finish but had trouble with his forward 4 1/2 and his forward 2 1/2 with 3 twists. On the upside, he made the final which is more than he achieved in Montreal. I'm not sure whether we will see Jiuyuan Zheng on the Chinese squad when we get to Paris - that's the second world cup event where he has failed to podium.

2024 Diving World Cup Leg 2 - Berlin Men's 10m Platform Synchro - Final Result: 1.) Noah Williams / Tom Daley - 465.00 2.) Rylan Wiens / Nathan Zsombor-Murray - 408.99 3.) Cassiel Rousseau / Domonic Bedggood - 402.57 ----------------------------------------------------------------- 4.) Maxwell Flory / Zachary Cooper - 379.62 5.) Luis Carlo Avila Sanchez / Tom Laszlo Waldsteiner - 358.44 6.) Anton Knoll / Dariush Lofti - 355.56 7.) Danylo Avanesov / Mark Hrytsenko - 353.79 8.) Andreas Sargent Larsen / Riccardo Giovannini - 349.83 9.) Max Linan / Carlos Camacho Del Hoyo - 317.79 I think that could be the best result for the British pairing since Daley returned and is just 7 points shy of what they scored in Tokyo to take the gold.

Sian Rainsley takes top spot on the podium in Hong Kong coming home 9 seconds ahead of USA's Katie Zaferes. Olivia Mathias took 7th whilst Vicky Holland just missed out on the top 10 with an 11th place finish and Sophie Alden was in 19th. On the men's side, Max Stapley was the best of the British finishers in 6th. Ben Dijkstra and Daniel Dixon had pretty poor day finishing 21st and 47th respectively.

Triathlon world Cup - Hong Kong Men's Elite: 1.) Alberto Gonzalez Garcia 2.) Antonio Serrat Seoane 3.) Kenji Nener Women's Elite: 1.) Sian Rainsley 2.) Katie Zaferes 3.) Kirsten Kasper

2024 Diving World Cup Leg 2 - Berlin Women's 3m Springboard Synchro - Final Result: 1.) Kassidy Cook / Sarah Bacon - 303.21 2.) Maddison Keeney / Anabelle Smith - 296.73 3.) Scarlett Mew Jensen / Yasmin Harper - 295.59 ----------------------------------------------------------------- 4.) Chiara Pellacani / Elena Bertocchi - 282.48 5.) Jana Lisa Rother / Saskia Oettighaus - 263.229

That should be Adam Fogg

Fair play to Rebecca Morrison and the team for pulling themselves together after a couple of shocking matches to get themselves into a top-8 finish. I'm not a huge fan of the team and when they lost to , I thought they'd be down towards 10th or 11th so to squeeze themselves into an Olympic quota spot was positive (even if it was the minimum we would expect from them). Even if they (or Fay Henderson's rink) finish mid table at next year's competition, they should do enough to secure their Olympic spot for 2026 but they will want to finish ahead of Norway and Japan to be sure.

The Socikas tournament reached final stages to day and GB came away with a gold and two silvers to add to the two bronze medals won yesterday. Isaac Okoh took gold in the 86Kg class whilst Ramtin Musah and Scott Richards took silver in the 80Kg and 51Kg classes respectively. I don't usually follow boxing so I could be wrong here, but in digging through recent results, I get the impression that the competition pool for GB boxers seems to be quite limited. It tends to be the same nations competing each time - so they're able to rack up bouts against Scandinavian and Baltic nations but that's about it.

The Bello brothers really lucked out with their quarter-final draw. Instead of facing the number 4 seed George / Andre, they were up against the 20th seed Varenhorst / Luini and they've come through in straight sets 23-21 / 23-21. A top 4 finish guaranteed, they'll face either 13th seeds Schachter/Dearing or 6th seeds Diaz/Alayo. Given they've already beaten the Cubans this weekend, they've got to feel pretty confident going into the match tomorrow.