Rafa Maciel

Safe to say this week hasn't gone exactly to plan for the Bello Brothers having lost their first 2 matches at World Champs. On the upside, they won today to secure a place in tomorrow's playoffs where they will face off against Fuller / O'Dea. That should be a winnable match for the British pair - the Kiwis are ranked 66th in the world compared to the Bello's at 24th

beaten by 85-81 yesterday in what should have been a relatively straightforward match. Kind of sums up performance over the last couple of years - losing matches that they should have been able to put to bed.

Alex Wise is back - he's not currently listed as part of the performance squad but Team GB site is confirming he's back in competitive action and looking to qualify for LA. Now we just need to get Pitman back in the squad and we could have reasonable qualifying prospects.

British Basketball lurching from one crisis to another it seems. British Basketball Federation to enter liquidation as crisis engulfing sport continues - BBC Sport It's almost enough to make UK Athletics management look competent.

Good start to qualifying campaign with 85 - 64 win over .

Forgot all about this but in the end finished 3rd in their group behind and v - 12-21 v - 10-20 v - 19-18 v - 17-15

Women get their 2027 EuroBasket qualifying campaign underway with 3 matches coming up in the next week or so. On Wednesday, they will face in Manchester before travelling to Vienna next Saturday to face and then Bergen on the following Tuesday to take on . EuroBasket 2027 will be key qualifying route for LA Olympics and whilst they shouldn't have any great difficulty getting through to the second qualifying round - GB are the top seed in their group and only need to finish in the top 2 to progress - hopefully they are able to put in stronger performances than they did in last year's tournament.

FIBA's suspension of the men's national team has been lifted so this month's World Cup qualifier against can go ahead. FIBA Statement on the British Basketball Federation | About FIBA

Jazmin Sawyers has apparently decided to compete in a pentathlon during next year's indoor season. Jazmin Sawyers to tackle pentathlon during this winter's indoor season - Athletics Weekly

Women's Football team have been drawn against , & in the 2027 World Cup Qualifying. Group winners progress to the World Cup whilst the second and third placed team will go to the play-offs. If they finish in 4th place (unlikely) then they would be relegated to UEFA League B. are in League B and have been drawn against , and . also in League B are against , and . Group winners in League B are promoted to League A. Top 3 finish will also get a place in the play-offs

The 2026 Rugby World SVNS kicks off next month in Dubai. Given the announcement that GB had terminated their full time Sevens program earlier this year, it was looking a little bleak for us, but has stepped in as saviour (at least for the men's side) by establishing a full-time programme as part of their new high-performance pathway. Scotland Sevens returns as Scottish Rugby take over GB programme | Scotland Rugby News

Excellent match between Mboko and Eala - well worthy of the night session given the afternoon's matches were a bit of a damp squib. Eala has some great skills in and around the net and the match could have gone either way. It had the atmosphere of a Davis Cup or BJK Cup match - the crowd were probably 80-90% cheering for Eala so it was impressive that Mboko was able to keep her composure. Give rich folk a lanyard and access to a VIP lounge and they believe that rules don't apply to them - pretty classless to be cheering between 1st and second serves or applauding double faults.

What does the LA schedule look like for doubling up? I assume his priority will be the individual time trial on the road

Just back from the 1st day of Prudential Open in Hong Kong - the hottest ticket of the day was to see Alexandra Eala in the doubles. This was scheduled on court 1 - which can only hold a couple of hundred spectators - so those who couldn't get a seat took over the top couple of rows in the east stand of centre court to watch over the wall. Led to some ill timed applause. Will be interesting to see how she gets on when she takes on Katie Boulter. Last year, Boulter had the majority of the crowd on her side for the final against Diana Shnaider but I don't think that will be the case tomorrow.

I'll bow to his knowledge and assume that the UCI have changed their qualification process. For Paris it was just the 2023 World champs that counted - which was why we all had minor panic about our men's team pursuit when they crashed out in Glasgow - but that may have been due to the shorter Olympic cycle. If they've reverted back to previous qualification pathways, then Kenny would be right and 2026 Worlds would be the first qualifying event.

Is it confirmed that the ranking window opens in 2026? For Paris it was the Nations Cup events from 2023 and 2024 that were included which would suggest that the ranking window for LA won't start until 2027

Agree it was a pretty solid championships - although to come away with only 1 gold in the 12 Olympic events is a bit disappointing. My takeaways, for what they're worth: Emma Finucane has maintained her great form. She was unlucky to be relegated in her sprint QF but she'll learn from that. On the upside, she was then able to get her tactics right in the Keirin. The Women's Team Sprint was competitive even though it was not our strongest team. Worth pointing out that neither Moir or Parris-Smith is currently on the Podium Squad so whilst valuable experience for them, I would assume that the team will be stronger next year. As usual, we were strong across the women's endurance events. Not sure what the thought process was for the women's team pursuit though - leaving Archibald out of the team dropped them from contending for Gold to contending for bronze. Matt Richardson's decision to come home has definitely strengthened the team sprint. in the last Olympic cycle, it always felt like we were competing for bronze at best and were beginning to fall behind nations like Poland and Japan. The next challenge is getting the rest of the line up right. The biggest concern would probably be the men's team pursuit - that was a shockingly poor ride in the 1st round.

Nice to see GB Beach Volleyball isn't wholly reliant on the Bello Brothers. Bialokoz and Baltrane have qualified for the main draw at the Elite16 event in Cape Town.

All-Around Qualifiers: Daiki Hashimoto - 83.065 Noe Seifert - 82.499 Zhang Boheng - 82.331 Daniel Marinov - 81.932 Shi Cong - 81.398 Angel Barajas - 80.664 Florian Langenegger - 80.298 Caio Souza - 79.166 Ryu Sunghyun - 78.866 Diogo Soares - 78.798 Robert Kirmes - 78.798 Shinnosuke Oka - 78.631 Timo Eder - 78.265 Thierno Diallo - 78.032 Krisztofer Meszaros - 77.699 Anthony Mansard - 77.432 Joel Plata - 77.365 Akseli Karsikas - 76.865 Jesse Moore - 76.732 Felix Dolci - 76.632 Vladyslav Hryko - 75.932 Sebastian Sponevik - 75.898 Omar Mohamed - 75.531 Dagur Kari Olafsson - 75.365

Individual Finalists from World Champs: Jake Jarman is the top qualifier for the floor final. Luke Whitehouse joins him in 8th place. Alexander Yolshin-Cash is through to the pommel final in 7th place. Harry Hepworth will go in the rings final as 6th placed qualifier. Courtney Tulloch is first reserve. Jake Jarman is 3rd reserve for vault final - so very unlikely he'll be defending his title unless something goes disastrously wrong. Joe Fraser is 2nd highest qualifier in the horizontal bar.

Top 24 After the first day of qualifying: All-Around: Daiki Hashimoto - 83.065 Noe Seifert - 82.499 Daniel Marinov - 81.932 Angel Barajas - 80.664 Florian Langenegger - 80.298 Caio Souza - 79.166 Ryu Sunghyun - 78.866 Diogo Soares - 78.798 Shinnosuke Oka - 78.631 Timo Eder - 78.265 Thierno Diallo - 78.032 Krisztofer Meszaros - 77.699 Joel Plata - 77.365 Vladyslav Hryko - 75.932 Sebastian Sponevik - 75.898 Omar Mohamed - 75.531 Dagur Kari Olafsson - 75.365 Benedek Tomcsanyi - 75.299 Nils Dunkel - 75.098 Victor Martinez - 74.765 Casimir Schmidt - 74.463 Paul Schmoelzer - 73.631 Dorian Doan - 73.597 Mario Rojas - 72.866 and among the nations to compete in the remaining 2 subdivisions.

Top 20 After subdivision Five: All-Around: Daiki Hashimoto - 83.065 Noe Seifert - 82.499 Daniel Marinov - 81.932 Florian Langenegger - 80.298 Caio Souza - 79.166 Ryu Sunghyun - 78.866 Diogo Soares - 78.798 Shinnosuke Oka - 78.631 Timo Eder - 78.265 Thierno Diallo - 78.032 Krisztofer Meszaros - 77.699 Joel Plata - 77.365 Vladyslav Hryko - 75.932 Sebastian Sponevik - 75.898 Omar Mohamed - 75.531 Dagur Kari Olafsson - 75.365 Benedek Tomcsanyi - 75.299 Nils Dunkel - 75.098 Victor Martinez - 74.765 Casimir Schmidt - 74.463

Top 12 After subdivision Four: All-Around: Daiki Hashimoto - 83.065 Daniel Marinov - 81.932 Caio Souza - 79.166 Diogo Soares - 78.798 Shinnosuke Oka - 78.631 Krisztofer Meszaros - 77.699 Vladyslav Hryko - 75.932 Sebastian Sponevik - 75.898 Omar Mohamed - 75.531 Benedek Tomcsanyi - 75.299 Victor Martinez - 74.765 Casimir Schmidt - 74.463 Two further subdivisions to come today

The Bellos fall just short in the final - 17-21 / 21-19 / 15-17 against Huerta & Gavira

This means the like , has no representative in the All-around competition.