Rafa Maciel

Women's 50m Freestyle: Ana Hopkin has achieved the BST both in 2023 and 2024 so is well placed to get a quota in this event. At the moment she looks to be the only swimmer who will hit the standard - although will be interesting to see how Okaro and Carter perform. Both would need to drop about half a second from their PBs so it may be too much to ask.

Bello brothers drawn against 2nd seeds Crabb / Brunner in the round of 16 - a bit of a nasty draw but a few of the top seeds have been off their game this week and they didn't top their group.

Bello brothers come from behind to take out Diaz / Alayo 2-1 (21-23 / 22-20 / 15-13) They were trailing throughout and it looked like the Cubans would win in straight sets before they battled back to level. In the decider, the Cubans looked to be heading for the win before the brothers fought back to sneak home with the win over the 6th seeds.

Kevin Mayer has withdrawn from the Aztec Invitational Track meet in San Diego after sustaining a knee injury - will probably look to Gotzis meet in mid-May to get the Olympic qualifying standard.

Women's 100m Freestyle & 4x100 Relay: In the same situation we had with the 200m Freestyle, Freya Anderson has the BST from last year but as previously discussed, we haven't seen her in action so far this year. I still haven't been able to find anything about any potential injury, so I am expecting her to make the standard when we get to trials. Anna Hopkin has already achieved the BST this year so just needs to replicate that in London to book her spot on the team. It's difficult to see anyone else coming close to the BST but perhaps Lucy Hope could be a potential wildcard - if she's in PB territory, then she could challenge the BST. When it comes to the 4x100 Relay, I'd argue that based on the 2024 SB times, this would be the one that would be the relay most at risk of missing the required BST and therefore forfeiting the quota - that's despite finishing 4th at the world in 2023 with a new NR. As it currently stands, the cumulative time for Hopkin, Colbert, Wood and Anderson would be 3:37.22 - roughly a second adrift of the BST. That being said, we know that Hope, Wood and Colbert are capable of getting into the mid 54s. It would be good to see Medi Harris also getting a new PB in the 54s to give the team some additional options when it comes to the heat swims.

Reese Lynch comes up short against Zhandos Kydyraliyev in the semi-final. Joe Tyers also loses his semi-final against Paul Hale. Both will take home bronze medals. Hamza Mehmood lost his first fight against Baregham Harutyunyan but as it was a semi-final, he still comes away with a bronze medal. Scott Richards won again - defeating Daniyal Sabit whilst - and Ramtin Musah is through to the final after defeating Maksym Kofan. Isaac Okoh got his first victory with a defeat of Pavlo Michkovskyi.

Wasted opportunity for Sam Hall as he loses in the first round in Tbilisi - had a pretty kind draw and could have easily picked up 260/360 points but instead he comes away with 10 points for participation.

Bello brothers def. Nolvak / Tiisaar 2-0 (21-17 / 21-16) Next up Diaz / Alayo.

Main selection event is British championships at the end of May - whoever wins the individual event at the British Champs will be selected - assuming that they have met the required standard in both the preliminary and final round. The selectors have given themselves a bit of discretion when it comes to the second spot and they can take into account performances across the World Cup events. For the synchro pairings, it is purely down to the selectors discretion - but realistically, I think we can all be pretty sure of the teams.

2024 Diving World Cup Leg 2 - Berlin Women's 10m Platform Finalists: Hongchan Quan - 423.20 Andrea Spendolini Sirieix - 347.80 Delaney Schnell - 314.45 Caeli McKay - 299.45 Valeria Antolino - 288.70 Elena Wassen - 286.50 Matsuri Arai - 282.20 Elaena Dick - 280.15 Emily Meaney - 277.45 Sarah Jodoin Di Maria - 271.65 PAuline Alexandra Pfeif - 252.90 Maia Biginelli - 242.15

2024 Diving World Cup Leg 2 - Berlin Men's 3m Springboard Finalists: Zongyuan Wang - 510.00 Jiuyuan Zheng - 457.90 Osmar Olvera Ibarra - 433.45 Alexis Jandard - 425.60 Moritz Wesemann - 419.00 Lars Rudiger - 417.25 Shixin Li - 415.30 Lorenzo Marsaglia - 412.35 Jack Laugher - 411.35 Daniel Goodfellow - 409.50 Tyler Downs - 408.90 Kurtis Mathews - 403.90

2024 Diving World Cup Leg 2 - Berlin Mixed 3m & 10m Team - Final Result: 1.) (Spendolini Sirieix/ Mew Jensen / Daley / Laugher) 2.) (Wassen / Oettinghaus / Barthel / Wesemann) 3.) (Larsen/ Tocci / Pellacani / Jordoin Di Maria)

Bello brothers have been drawn against Diaz / Alayo, Nolvak / Tiisaar and Victor Felipe / Renato in the pool stage of the Recife challenger event.

It looks like Reese Lynch is back to full fitness - he's been included in the squad taking part in the Socikas International tournament this weekend in Lithuania and he has won his first round fight against Aleksandras Petrovskis. I think the selection for Bangkok needs to be done by about 17th of April so I guess this will be an important tournament for him as he will need to prove he's back to full fitness for the selectors to give him the nod for the final Olympic qualifying tournament. Also in the squad this week are Scott Richards and Hamza Mehmood in the 51Kg, Joe Tyers in 63.5Kg, Harris Akbar in 71Kg, Ramtin Musah in 80Kg and Isaac Okoh in 86Kg. Alongside the victory for Lynch, Richards, Tyers and Musah all recorded victories on the first day, but Harris Akbar was defeated.

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.