Rafa Maciel

To be fair, she's been an integral part of the GB Boxing set up for a while - the federation refer to her as a sparring partner, but they've given her the same exposure as all of the boxers within the team. Add to that, the guys who are likely to be doing the commentary for BBC in Paris including Steve Bunce already regard her as part of the British team. Having said that, her back story will undoubtedly feature quite heavily in the BBC coverage.

No - that's pretty much how it was for him during the early part of his career. It got a bit better after 2012 but he basically embodies the typical vision of a sour-faced Scotsman.

Should be instead of - we got our quota back at the European Games with Delicious Orie

It's largely outside of her control now - she has provided all of the information requested by the Home Office and now has to wait for the process to work through to a conclusion. So, if she wants to compete, her only route, as it currently stands, is through the refugee option.

comprises athletes from Russia and Belarus. I could be wrong, but I think that one of the athletes that qualified here - Georgii Gurtsiev - is from so it would still be within the 2 per NOC rules.

UEC BMX European Cup - Round 2: Sarrians Men's Elite: 1.) Kye Whyte 2.) Romain Mayet 3.) Robin Genestroni Women's Elite: 1.) Malene Kejlstrup 2.) Nadine Aeberhard 3.) Michelle Wissing

Squad selection for ISSF Final Olympic Qualification Championship - Rifle & Pistol: 11-Apr - 20-Apr, Rio Men's 10m Air Rifle: Dean Bale Mike Bamsey Tom Diggle Men's 10m Air Pistol: James Miller Men's 50m Rifle 3 Positions: Dean Bale Mike Bargeron Men's Rapid Fire Pistol: Sam Gowin Women's 10m Air Rifle: Ruth Mwandumba Women's 10m Air Pistol: No Brits entered Women's 50m Rifle 3 Positions: Katie Gleeson Women's 25m Pistol: Jess Liddon Although I am not expecting us to be bagging any quotas here, it will be interesting to see how Mwandumba gets on - she fronted the campaign as the new face of British shooting last year but then didn't really make an impact on the team selection. Worth pointing out that there are also mixed team events in Rio as well - which GB have entered - but which would seem to be pretty pointless as there are no quotas directly awarded for the team events.

Squad selection for ISSF Final Olympic Qualification Championship - Shotgun: 19-Apr - 29-Apr, Doha 2 quota places are available in each of the events. Men's Skeet: Ben Llewellin Mitchell Brooker-Smith Arran Eccleston Men's Trap: Matt Coward-Holley Aaron Heading Ewen Ross Women's Skeet: Emily Hibbs Alexandra Hayman Joyce Jessica Burgess Women's Trap: Abbey Ling Kirsty Hegarty Maddie Purser Have to admit to being a bit confused by this one - the Final Olympic Qualification event is taking place BEFORE the European Shotgun Championships. That could work in GB's favour but it seems a very messy way of managing the process.

After a strong start, picking up quotas across shotgun and rifle, the team's performances when it matter most seems to have gone off the boil a bit and we're now heading into the last chance shoot-out for quotas (pun intended)

I'd be surprised if they didn't medal - they won 5 of the HSBC 7's events in the '22/'23 season (which I assume was the results used for Gracenote's prediction). Granted their form hasn't been as dominant this season, but they have still managed to medal in 2 out of the 5 rounds so far.

Ben Shelton is apparently likely to skip the Olympics, choosing to prioritise preparation for the US hard court season.

Was so distracted by random boxing federation Facebook pages that I missed the latest update to the Gracenote prediction. Nielsen's Gracenote Virtual Medal Table - February 2024 NOC Gold Silver Bronze Total Change Since Last Release 37 37 47 121 Drops 8 medals in total with 9 fewer silver medals being offset by 1 additional bronze. At 121, this is the lowest number of medals projected since the table was initiated. 37 28 22 85 No change in the total number of medals but it does include 2 additional gold medals. 27 14 11 52 Down 1 medal overall but Gold increase by 1 17 9 13 39 An increase of 4 medals in total including 1 gold and 3 Bronze medals. Sees NED moving up to 4th in the table from 6th last month. 16 24 25 65 Up 1 medal overall but total number of Gold drops by 1 which is offset by 2 additional Silver medals. 15 17 24 53 Drops 3 medals overall as few bronze medals are won. 2 Golds are downgraded to Silver. 14 16 17 47 No change in the overall number of medals but team projected to win 1 additional Gold and 4 Silver. 9 15 19 43 Gains 4 medals in total but 1 Gold is downgraded to Silver. 9 2 7 18 Small overall volume (would be ranked 13th by volume) moves into the top 10 by virtue of the fact that half of their projected medals are Gold 8 21 17 46 The biggest shift in the projection this month - although the overall total is down just 2, It's 7 fewer Golds with 4 downgraded to Silver. Huge caveat here - I think it is safe to assume that the projection has been heavily impacted by the results of the Doha World Aquatic Championships hence the big drop in the Gold volume which is unlikely to be the case when we get to Paris.

Barcelona marathon takes place on Sunday - I think I am right in saying this has a reputation as being quite a fast course so could have been a good opportunity for non-London bound runners to try to get the standard, but unfortunately there are no Brits in the elite field for either men or women.

So, you've now gone from there being "no team in Rome" to "not much of a team" - there's a pretty fundamental difference between those two positions. Everyone is aware that the federation's finances are in a mess after chronic mismanagement but getting a team to Rome isn't going to make a material difference to the financial position but saying there will be no team based on comments from a friend of a friend is just clickbait.

2 Quota fights secured: Men's 92Kg - Patrick Brown. Faces Mateusz Bereznicki on Monday. Bereznicki won a bronze medal at last year's European Games so will be a difficult opponent to overcome. It's a winnable match-up though and Brown will take comfort from the fact that Bereznicki lost in the first round of the BoxAm tournament in La Nucia in February. Women's 75Kg - Chantelle Reid. Faces Aziza Zokirova on Monday. Zokirova was DSQ in her last fight at the Nations Cup event in Serbia back in January so difficult to gauge her form. Reid wasn't on great form at the Tammer Tarnaus at the end of last year but she did take a bronze medal at the Sheffield World Cup event in January. (Women's 75Kg - Cindy Ngamba. Faces Busra Isildar on Monday). Should be Ngamba's toughest fight yet, but she'll be pretty confident of her form.

He's talking sh**e! The selection policy was published in January - there's no trials, so it will largely be down to the individual athletes expressing an interest in attending. So, whilst we are unlikely to have a huge team full of our big Olympic medal prospects, there will be a British team in Rome. EUROPEAN ATHLETICS CHAMPIONSHIPS ROME SELECTION POLICY ANNOUNCED – UK Athletics

I have to give you credit... for the consistency of the utter drivel that you continue to post. The selection policy for UK athletics was published in January EUROPEAN ATHLETICS CHAMPIONSHIPS ROME SELECTION POLICY ANNOUNCED – UK Athletics Sure the team will be small - let's be honest it's a stupid idea to have a continental championship in the same year as the Olympics so for the vast majority of our top athletes, it's probably not going to be on their calendar but to suggest that no British athletes are going to apply to compete in Rome is simply you spouting yet more rubbish. For the sake of everyone's sanity, can you please stop spamming the threads with this nonsense.

Looks like 1st stage of UEC BMX European Cup in Sarrians has been cancelled due to bad weather.

Team Announcement Women's K1 500m - Alyce Woods Women's K4 500m - Aly Bull, Ella Beere, Alexandra Clarke & Yale Steinepreis Men's K1 1000m - Tom Green Men's K2 500m - Tom Green & Jean Van Der Westhuyzen Men's K4 500m - Noah Havard, Jackson Collins, Pierre Van Der Westhuyzen & Riley Fitzsimmons

For once Wikipedia is right - the original selection document published for 2020 had a team size limit of 30. A revised version was published in December 2020 and the limit had been increased to 35.

Women's 50Kg Savannah Stubley - Had to wait until day 6 before she got to take to the ring and came out on the wrong side of a 5-0 decision. Come Bangkok, the question will be whether GB Boxing stick with Stubley or revert back to Demi-Jade Resztan. Women's 57Kg Elise Glynn - Needs to get to the semi-finals in order to secure the quota so is only half-way there after wins over Jekaterina Sorokina followed by Xu Zichun. Next up is Esra Yildiz Kahraman - a tough match up but one that Glynn can win if she is on form. The quota fight will be against the winner of Nesthy Petecio and Maud Van Der Toorn. Would like to see Glynn get the quota but think she'll come up short. Women's 60Kg Shona Whitwell - Another 1st round loser. She's yet to win a single bout in the 2 qualifying tournaments she has competed in - although to be fair both loses came at the hands of Donjeta Sadiku. Despite that, I think she'll still get the nod for Bangkok over Gemma Richardson. Women's 75Kg Chantelle Reid - Probably our best chance of a quota on the women's side although difficult to read too much into her victory over Eyed Angel George. In the last-16, Reid will be up against Viviane Pereira. Assuming she can come through that, the quota fight will probably be against Aziza Zokirova.

But the actual cost of sending the team to Paris doesn't fall on British Swimming - as far as I am aware, the bill is picked up by the BOA so cost shouldn't be a factor. It looks like British Swimming have always had a team limit in their selection policy - I thought it had been reduced to 30 for this cycle but it's been set at 30 for Rio and Tokyo so I can't even blame it on Buckner. Hopefully as you say, if more than 30 athletes are able to get the individual qualifying standards GB Swimming will have the sense to flex their criteria - they did show they were willing/able to be flexible at last year's trials when they realised they had completely balls'd up their selection for Fukuoka.

I am sorry but you really do talk some nonsense - I'm not sure if you genuinely believe half the stuff that you write or whether you do it trying to get a rise out of someone.

With all of the weight classes now at least at the stage of Last-16, it's perhaps worth taking stock of where the team are in the battle for those Olympic Quotas. Men's 50Kg Kieran MacDonald - Takes on Rogen Ladon in the round of 16 on Sunday with the winner progressing to the quota bout next week. Ladon dispatched Federico Emilio Serra in the first round before securing a knock out of Said Mortaji in round 2. The fight against Ladon should be close but it is a winnable fight and arguably a more favourable match-up than facing Serra. If MacDonald can come through, then he will face the winner of Saken Bibossinov or Azat Makhmetov. As a former World champion, Bibossinov will start as favourite but there have been plenty of shocks at the tournament so far. Men's 57Kg Owain Harris-Allan - given he was a late replacement, he has acquitted himself pretty well so far, coming through a tricky opening round against Jose Luis De Lo Santos by split decision before outclassing Alex Mukuka. In order to get to the quota fight, he needs to get past Lucas Fernandez Garcia. Despite his good results this week, the quota fight could prove to be a step too far as he's likely to come up against Lui Oliveira in the quarter-finals. Men's 63.5Kg Patris Mughalzai lost in the round of 32, coming up short against Ali Habibinezhad. Mughalzai gave it a decent shot, but assuming that Reece Lynch is back to full fitness I would assume that Lynch will get the nod for the second OQT in Bangkok. Men's 71Kg Lewis Richardson - lost in the first round to Dev Nishant. It is hard to be too disappointed when you're losing to a World Bronze medalist, but it is a frustrating result nonetheless. Richardson will probably fight again in Bangkok but not beyond possibility that Harris Akbar could force his way on to the squad. Men's 80Kg Taylor Bevan - In arguably the most disappointing result of the week so far, Bevan lost in the first round to Pylyp Akilov. Whilst this was always going to be a difficult opener, he lost 5-0 - in a weight class which was probably our best bet of getting a quota. the 80Kg division is probably GB's strongest in terms of depth so it's not guaranteed that Bevan gets the nod for Bangkok. Men's 92Kg Patrick Brown - With a bye in the first round, Brown has only had 1 fight once so far - a 5-0 win over Boban Ilioski. Sanchez Luis stands in the way of the quota fight and Brown probably start as marginal favourite. Assuming Brown gets through to the quota fight, he'll face either Soheb Bouafia or Mateusz Bereznicki. The quota bout is going to be tough - the Pole was a bronze medalist at the '23 European Games and Bouafia has had 2 unanimous decisions. So from the 3 fighters we still have in play, if I was ranking our chances, I'd probably go: 1.) Kieran Macdonald 2.) Patrick Brown 3.) Owain Harris-Allan

At the end of Day 6, have lost half of their contingent of fighters. We're in a better position than some nations, but it's hard to get away from the fact that we've had some disappointing results in the early rounds. Morning Session: No Brits in action. Afternoon Session: Women's 50Kg - Rinka Kinoshita def. Savannah Stubley (5-0) Evening Session: Women's 57Kg - Elise Glynn def. Xu Zichun (3-2) Men's 57Kg - Owain Harris-Allan def. Alex Mukuka (5-0)