Rafa Maciel

Women's 200m Freestyle & 4x200 Relay: Both Anderson and Colbert have the BST from last year. Colbert also achieved the OQT from earlier this year. I don't have a record of Anderson having competed so far in 2024 - but I am not aware of any injury issue that would indicate there is any kind of problem. I therefore expect both Anderson and Colbert to get the standard and earn selection for Paris. The times for the top 4 finishers in the final will determine the relay quota with the required standard being 7:51.89. Assuming there's no major surprises, we should be able to hit that fairly easily. Taking the 2024 season's best for Colbert, Wood and Harris along with the 2023 mark for Anderson would produce a time of 7:49.79 but ideally, it would be good to see Wood, Harris and Hope getting into the low-mid 1:57s.

Men's final 4: Huston is world 49, Tom Hall is 54 with Alex Wise at 89. Despite Conor Hall being the top scorer in this qualifying competition, his world ranking is a lowly 234 - so not exactly the makings of a world beating team. Maybe this will be a case of the collective team being stronger than the sum of the individual members.

Final 4 for the international team selection confirmed: Obviously, Pitman and Healey are world class - I think I am right in saying that they have both been world number 1 within the last couple of years - but Rogers is ranked 560 whilst Havers doesn't even have a world ranking from what I can see. I'm not sure that's a recipe for an Olympic quota but I hope to be proved wrong.

Women's 400m Freestyle: For me, this is another event where there is no obvious swimmer who is a candidate to hit the BST of 4:04.98 although with Crisp and Blocksidge, we've got 2 athletes whose personal bests are within about 8 seconds of the standard - so not dissimilar to what we are hoping Blocksidge can achieve in the 1500 & 800m. Best guess at the moment is that both Glenister and Blocksidge will dip below 4:10.00 but will come up short of the BST. Will be interesting to see if Slevin and Stott could also challenge their PBs.

Nope - she's not on the start list.

Don't think he'd have managed to get as high as 530 - that would have needed 100 points from his last dive - but he was definitely on course to top qualifying, probably with a score of about 500-510. The forward 4 and half somersaults in tuck has tended to be his weakest dive in the last couple of competitions. On a good day, he'll get 5.5-7.0 but just as often, he'll be in 4.0-6.5 range.

Max Stapley, Daniel Dixon and Ben Dijkstra will be in actin in Hong Kong this weekend for the World Cup event - sadly I think these guys are all too far down the rankings for this to make much of a difference in terms of GB getting that 3rd quota for the men's team. Sian Rainsley, Vicky Holland, Olivia Mathias and Sophie Alden make up the women's contingent.

2024 Diving World Cup Leg 2 - Berlin Men's 10m Platform Finalists: Junjie Lian - 483.05 Noah WIlliams - 471.75 Cassiel Rousseau - 451.70 Rylan Wiens - 448.10 Rikuto Tamai - 442.85 Nathan Zsombor-Murray - 408.90 Igor Myalin - 403.50 Brandon Loschiavo - 384.95 Andreas Sargent Larsen - 384.45 Jaden Shiloh Eikermann Gregorchuk - 375.40 Luis Carlo Avila Sanchez - 369.10 Zachary Cooper - 361.70 Scores are well down on what we saw in Montreal.

We haven't taken a look at the GB Judo team for a while - probably because the results have been pretty mediocre on the men's side - but we're heading into the final tranche of tournaments within the qualifying window: Men's Team 60Kg - No prospect of quota as we don't really have an active judoka in this weight class (Sam Hall is the highest ranked Brit at 97th) 66Kg - Sam Hall has outside chance of qualifying but really needs to get some big scores at the remaining Grand Slam events. Currently ranked 52nd, he is about 1000 points short of a quota spot. Hall is competing in Tbilisi this weekend and has been given a decent draw - he will fight Ravshan Nasriddinov in the first round with Juan Postigos waiting in the round of 32. 73Kg - Eric Ham is the best of the Brits at 48th in the ranking. He wont qualify in part because he doesn't compete in the big scoring events. It is a shame, because he's "only" about 800 points shy of being in contention for a continental quota. 81Kg - Lachlan Moorhead - who I regard as the most frustrating performer in the squad - is currently in a continental quota spot. He is 30th in the ranking list and just 350 or so points behind the last automatic quota spot. He is also in Tblisi this weekend and has a very winnable 1st round match against former team mate Max Stewart who now competes for . Assuming he can get through that Timo Cavelius waits in the round of 32. 90Kg - Jamal Petgrave hasn't been competing for a while now but he is still 29th in the ranking list. He needs to find 800+ points to get to a quota spot and about 600 points to be in contention for a continental quota. In Tblisi, he has a winnable first fight against David Aghasaryan with Eljan Hajiyev waiting in the round of 32. 100Kg - Started off pretty strongly with both Rhys Thompson and Harry Lovell-Hewitt in the mix for quotas early on, but they seem to have fallen off the radar and are now both well off the pace in the hunt for quotas. +100Kg - Wesley Greenidge doesn't really compete in the big tour events so whilst he does well in some of the European Open level events, he won't be heading to Paris. Women's Team 48Kg - Amy Platten has dropped off the radar so isn't in contention for quota any more. 52Kg - Chelsie Giles is a genuine medal contender having won silver at Paris Grand Slam and bronze at the Tashkent Grand Slam. She is currently sitting 4th in the Olympic rankings. 57Kg - Our strongest weight class - Nekoda Smythe-Davis and Lele Nairn are in qualifying positions, all be it they are towards the bottom of the list. They're not competing in Tblisi so they could be overtaken this weekend and drop out of a qualifying spot. 63Kg - Lucy Renshall is our second medal prospect in Judo with silver medals in both Lisbon and Zagreb Grand Prix and a bronze in Paris Grand Slam. But she is a little inconsistent - her other 2 ranking scores for the second period are participation points. 70Kg - Another weight class where we have 2 judoka in qualifying positions - Katie-Jemima Yeats Brown is currently ranked 19th and Kelley Peterson Pollard is 21st. As with our fighters in the 57Kg class, they are both towards the bottom of the list so still have work to do to secure a quota spot. Both are competing in Tblisi - Yeats Brown has Ellen Froner in first round with Gulnoza Matniyazova waiting in the round of 32. Peterson Pollard starts in the round of 32 against Elisavet Teltsidou. 78Kg - Again we have 2 fighters in quota spots - Emma Reid is 23rd in the ranking whilst Nathalie Powell is 26th. Reid is competing in Tblisi but would need a top 8 finish there to increase her overall score. She starts off against Eiraima Silvestre which could be a tricky fight. Powell will start against Iriskhon Kurbanbaeva with Yelyzaveta Lytvynenko waiting in the round of 16. +78Kg - Nobody in contention in this weight - Sarah Adlington had appeared in the entry list for a few tournaments but didn't actually compete.

Women's 800m Freestyle: As with the 1500m, the 800m will operate a fastest heat final so based on their entry times, these should be the finalists. In contrast to the 1500m, nobody has improved on their 2023 times so far this year. Blocksidge would need to shave about 9 seconds off her 2024 times - roughly a 7 second PB. That will be challenging but not impossible. Behind her, the rest of the field don't look likely to challenge the qualifying times - they'd all need to swim at least 15 seconds quicker than they have in 2024 so far.

Both Grace Reid and Scarlett Mew Jensen have qualified for the final of the 3m springboard. Reid scored 307.95 to qualify in 4th whilst Mew Jensen was 6th with 287.10. Overall, the level of the competition was down on the last leg in Montreal - even Yiwen Chen's score was down about 20 points or so.

2024 Diving World Cup Leg 2 - Berlin Women's 3m Springboard Finalists: Yiwen Chen - 336.65 Maddison Keeney - 325.65 Sarah Bacon - 317.10 Grace Reid - 307.95 Sayaka Mikami - 300.30 Scarlett Mew Jensen - 287.10 Saskia Oettinghaus - 286.80 Brittany O'Brien - 285.30 Chiara Pellacani - 279.30 Nais Gillet - 266.15 Margo Erlam - 265.80 Julia Vincent - 262.65 Another solid qualifying performance from Keeney and Bacon who are perhaps establishing themselves as contenders for minor medal behind the Chinese pair.

Not sure how many of these I'll be able to get through before the event kicks off (the swimmingresults.org site restricts how many data searches you can do) but thought I'd take a look at some of the events where there is a question mark around whether we'll get a qualifier for Paris. Women's 1500m Freestyle There are 50 athletes entered into the event and those featured in the table are the top-8 swimmers based on their entry times - so this will probably be the line-up for the "fastest heat" final. The 1500m is the only long-distance event where the top athletes have outperformed their 2023 SB already in 2024. All eyes will be on Blocksidge who managed to get within 1 second of the OQT earlier this year but will need to find an additional 8 seconds to meet British Swimming's standard. She's already swam 9 seconds faster than the best she achieved last year so with a bit of luck; she'll be able to carry that PB form into the competition. Gut instinct at the moment says she'll get the OQT but might come up just short of the BST. Quick word on Amber Keegan - she obviously missed out on the open water quota so if she wants to go to Paris, she is going to need to get there via the pool, but she would need a big step forward for that to happen in this event.

Harsh!.....Not all together untrue, but harsh nonetheless. I am taking comfort from the fact that we have a potentially stronger team waiting in the wings with Fay Henderson.

Second leg of Diving World Cup kicks off in Berlin later today. sending a bit of a depleted squad - there is no Lois Toulson in the women's 10m and, although Spendolini-Sirieix is there, she's only in the individual 10m platform - we won't have synchro pair. Likewise in the men's 10m platform, Kyle Kothari is not competing. Other than that, all of our top team will be there. Tom Daley is there in the synchro with Noah Williams but I think that the fact that he hasn't taken the opportunity to double up in the individual as well is probably more evidence that he is only targeting the synchro event for Paris.

Rounds 3 and 4 of the UEC BMX European Cup take place next weekend. It is a full strength team for the men again - Quillan Isodore, Kye Whyte and Ross Cullen are all down for the men's elite and will be joined by Eddie Moore. No sign of Paddy Sharrock though - I don't think he is injured but I don't have a record of him competing since World Cup Round 4 in Brisbane. Likewise for the women, both Shriever and Hutt are scheduled to compete so there is a chance that they could do enough to overtake in the Olympic rankings.

I'd argue it just feels like that because of how badly have been playing - I think their defeat to was a bigger upset

Watching match and the team dynamic is just bizarre - Morrison has completely lost control of her team. You'd think after taking a 3 in the 8th, they'd be pretty buoyant. But Morrison called a shot, the other 3 disagreed so they called a time-out. Morrison didn't even speak during the time-out. The coach eventually favoured Morrison's original call and then they made a total hash of the shot.

Well I didn't see that coming - a 3 for in the 8th end

Interesting observation made by Rhona Howie in the commentary for v . The Scottish team are stuck in a cycle where they are losing matches, so they are lacking confidence. But it's also meant that they've started to question and challenge Morrison's calls/ice judgement. That is undermining the skip and causing her own confidence to plumet with the net effect being they'll continue to lose matches.

Women's Individual Sprint: 1.) Emma Finucane 2.) Mathilde Gros 3.) Lea Sophie Friedrich Reasoning: Mapping this event is pretty challenging as the format of the competition will probably give rise to quite a few surprises and it's not impossible that we may see a medalist having to come through a repechage round. Based on their qualifying performances across the '23 and '24 season, I think Finucane will post the fastest time ahead of Gross and Friedrich. I am expecting Gros (and to lesser extent Divine Kouame) to benefit from the home crowd advantage. There's also a good chance that I am being too optimistic with regards to Sophie Capewell who generally does well in the qualifying but then doesn't follow that up in the match racing.

Have to admit, I was struggling a bit to figure out who would be the second rider for behind Miriam Vece. Giadia Capobianchi was at the Europeans in 2023 but she hasn't been at any of the main track events since. The other name I had in the mix was Francesca Selva but again, she hasn't really done much.

The provisional entry lists for next month's British Champs/Olympic trials have been released. BS Championships (swimmingresults.org) Haven't gone through the whole file yet, but interesting to see Amelie Blocksidge going in 5 events - 200, 400, 800 & 1500 Free and 400IM. I'd like to see her getting the standard in the long distance events but I wonder whether going in so many events will reduce her chances of getting the qualifying standard in any of them.

So, my take on this... With Muirhead retiring after Beijing, the options were pretty limited. Muirhead had been such a dominant force within the sport domestically (and internationally) that it was difficult to see who was going to be able to step up. At the same time, Vicky Wright also retired so it wasn't a case of just making minor changes to the lineup, they basically needed to put together a whole new team. At this point, Scottish Curling could have stepped in to put together a composite team/podium program containing the best curlers in the country. Instead, Jennifer Dodds went off to one team whilst Hailey Duff went to another. In the end, Scottish Curling looked to the promote a whole team to the podium program. At the time, Morrison's team probably was the best of the rest in Scotland but arguably her third - Gina Aitken - actually had the stronger pedigree as a former Junior world Champ and a bronze medalist in the Scottish Senior event. Morrison's 1st foray into the World Champs in 2022 ended early -through nobody's fault - when the team contracted Covid and had to withdraw. They bounced back later that year with a surprise bronze at the 2022 Europeans and I think everyone assumed that they had a pretty solid team whoc ould certainly hold their own on the international stage. The 2023 World Champs were a disaster for the team, and they finished 12th out of 13 teams. At the Europeans that same year, they finished 5th. By this point, Jennifer Dodds had been brought into the team as alternate/third with Gina Aitken dropping to 2nd. I watched a lot of their matches at the Worlds and Europeans that year, and from what I saw, the dynamics within the team were a complete mess. I got the impression that Dodds being in the team wasn't Morrison's choice and there was no strong connection between the pair, with Morrison instead relying heavily on Aitken. One of the strengths of the Scottish men's squad is the connection between Mouat as skip and Grant Hardie as third. Likewise with Muirhead, it was evident that she got on well with Dodds and they worked great as a team. With Morrison, it looked like Dodds was being frozen out. Coming into the '24 Worlds, Morrison didn't win the Scottish Championship. Instead, Fay Henderson - a double world junior champion - took the title, but her rink had had a mediocre season prior to that so the selectors opted for Morrison based on her more consistent performances across the year. Interestingly, Henderson is coached by Eve Muirhead and has Hailey Duff as her third. If I was a betting man, I think it will ultimately fall to Henderson's rink to secure GB's Olympic quota and I wouldn't be surprised if we see her at the Europeans later in the year. If they could find a way to incorporate Jen Dodds into the set-up I think they could have a pretty formidable team.

Sorry but it won't last . Poland didn't compete in Hong Kong and neither did Canada (and they still have their continental champs)