Rafa Maciel

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)

Women's Team Sprint: 1.) 2.) 3.) Reasoning: Although not currently in a qualifying position, I think ultimately Canada will dislodge France after the last couple of qualifying events are completed. Based on the team's average times taken across the '23 season and the '24 qualifying events completed to date, GB and Germany are clearly ahead of the rest of the field. GB have generally come out on top in qualifying - the exceptions being the 2 continental championships - but I don't see any reason they wouldn't do so again in Paris. China and Netherlands have managed to put a bit of distance over the rest of the field and whilst China currently have the edge, the Dutch team have been closing the gap and could establish themselves as the 3rd ranked team by the time we get to Paris. For the rest of the field, there's not a huge difference in their average times. I am giving the nod to Canada and New Zealand because I think they have the potential to make the most progress before Paris. Mexico is probably the weakest team in the field - their position in the rankings list is flattered by their win in Milton last year against a weakened field. In the head-to-heads in Round 1, there could be a surprise in the first 2 heats, but nothing I've seen in current form suggests that is really likely. In the medal races, much as I would like to call it for GB, I think the head-to-head currently favours Germany. I've posted elsewhere that I think the key to a GB win will be with Sophie Capewell as the second-line rider - if she can hand over to Finucane within 0.2 seconds, then the GB team would be favourite for the title. In the bronze final, the head-to-head would be in favour of China - they came out on top in Glasgow at the worlds and repeated that in Hong Kong last week.

Current track cycling quota projections By NOC after the Nations Cup II event in Hong Kong: There are still 2 ranking events left in the qualifying window: 1.) 2024 PanAmerican Championships - Carson (3-Apr - 7-Apr) 2.) Nations Cup III - Milton : (12-Apr - 14-Apr)

The Scottish men are current world champions and 3-time European champions whilst the mixed doubles pairing of Dodds and Mouat were 5th in most recent world champs. I'd also point out that Eve Muirhead won precisely 0 world medals in the Beijing Olympic cycle ... but yeah sure, Scottish curling is going so far backwards.

The FEI have confirmed the ground jury for the Dressage competition in Paris: Raphael Saleh (President) Henning Lehrmann Isabel Wessels Mariette Sanders Magnus Ringmark Michael Osinski Susanne Baarup Based on previous experience, I expect the inclusion of Wessels to be met with a degree of disgust and will give rise to plenty of conspiracy theories when it comes to scoring of the riders.

IFSC European Cup: Speed - Lublin Men's Elite: 1.) Gian Luca Zodda - 5.29sec 2.) Luca Robbiati - Fall 3.) Marcin Dzienski - 5.29sec Women's Elite: 1.) Franziska Ritter - 6.84sec 2.) Beatrice Colli - 7.03sec 3.) Aleksandra Miroslaw - 6.38sec

Oceania Triathlon Sprint Championship - Davenport Men's Elite: 1.) Dylan McCullough 2.) Luke Willian 3.) Jacob Birtwhistle Women's Elite: 1.) Jaz Hedgeland 2.) Brea Roderick 3.) Tara Sosinski Mixed Relay: 1.) Australia I (Luke Willian / Tara Sosinski / Brandon Copeland / Jaz Hedgeland) 2.) New Zealand I (Saxon Morgan / Brea Roderick / Trent Thorpe / Eva Goodisson) 3.) Australia III (Lachlan Jones / Charlotte McShane / Brayden Mercer / Jessica Ewart-Mctigue)

Things going from bad to worse for in the curling - after losing to , they've been beaten by , and they are currently getting trounced by . I know Muirhead had to go through the last chance qualifying, but if we have to go through that route again this time, I wouldn't have any confidence that Morrison can deliver an Olympic quota.

If you genuinely believe that USA Track and Field and the other national federations are going to allow themselves be told by IAAF who they have to take to major championships, then I have a bridge over the river Thames for sale. Honestly, it's a very good price and I have all the paperwork necessary to prove ownership.

Neither the IOC nor the international federations can compel a National Olympic Committee to select an athlete and that will not change - no matter how many times you predict it.

Caudrey winning gold would certainly propel her as the face of GB Athletics but I think the most satisfying and perhaps higher profile win would be for either Kerr or Wightman to beat Ingebrigtsen in the 1500m given he has shown that he is such a bad loser

Athletics weekly have a good write up on likely state of GB squad for Paris ahead of the outdoor season kicking off. Nice to see that they have avoided the temptation of predicting golds for the likes of Caudery, Kerr and Hodgkinson this early in the season - will be interesting to see if they develop this further as we get closer to the Games. Paris 2024 podium predictions - AW (athleticsweekly.com)