Rafa Maciel

Another direct quota event coming up next week - 8-9th May will be the European Canoe Sprint Regatta in Szeged and GB could/should have chances to qualify a couple of boats. Deborah Kerr has been selected in women's K1 500m and she will team up with Emma Russell in the women's K2 500m. The Reid/Russel pairing finished 9th in last year's world championships and with most of the main European nations qualified already, GB should be in the mix for 1 of the 2 quotas available. Katie Reed is back trying to get to her second Olympics. She will compete in the women's C1 200m. On the men's side, Dan Johnson will go in the men's K1 1000m whilst James Russell and Trevor Thomson will be in the men's K2 500m.

Next direct quotas on offer for GB should be this weekend at the European Archery Championships in Essen

We didn't see much of it in Glasgow as it was only used in the ill-fated men's team pursuit squad, but GB Cycling officially launched their 2024 Olympic Track Bike yesterday. Paris track bike officially launched ahead of Paris 2024 Olympic Games (britishcycling.org.uk)

Charlie Aldridge, Cameron Orr, Evie Richards, Annie Last and Isla Short selected for the UEC MTB European Championship next week in Romania.

The way that she tells the story is that her decision wasn't driven by not being selected for the qualifier but rather the fact that she was told she wasn't even going to be considered for selection. She had expected there to be internal assessment involving herself, Walsh and another boxer which ultimately didn't happen. If that is the case, can't help thinking that it was an avoidable situation.

As was the case with the 1st boxing qualifier, an extra day of competition has been added for the second qualifying tournament in Bangkok. Competition now scheduled to run between 24-May-2-Jun. Current estimate is that more than 630 athletes will be registered to compete.

May is going to be a hectic month for athletes as the hunt for Olympic qualifying standards heats up so mark your cards early for some performances to look forward to: 4-May: USATF Throws Festival - Anna Purchase will compete in the hammer and Divine Oladipo competes in the shot put. 4-May: Meeting National Est Lyonnais - Elliot Giles and Archie Davies will both compete in the 800m. 10-May: Wanda Diamond League Doha - Morgan Lake opens her outdoor season in the high jump whilst Jemma Reekie competes in the 800m. Indoor world champion Molly Caudery opens her outdoor season in the pole vault. 12-May: Horst Mandl Memorial - Reporting this with slight trepidation given I got burned by WA earlier but it looks like Katarina Johnson Thompson will get her outdoor season underway in the javelin and 100m hurdles. 15-May: Savona International Meeting - Keely Hodgkinson will run the 400m whilst Jessie Knight will compete in the 400m hurdles. Charlie Dobson will be in the men's 400m and Scott Lincoln will be in the shot put. 16-May: Meeting International de Montreuil - Ben WIlliams competes in the triple jump whilst Eliott Giles will run the 800m. On the women's side, Jemma Reekie is listed as competing in 800m, Erin Wallace and Ellie Baker are due to compete in the 1500m. We should also see Lorraine Ugen go in the long jump. Interestingly, we may also see the return of Laura Zialor in the high jump in her first competition since rupturing her Achilles at the European Team Champs last year. 18-May: USATF Los Angeles Grand Prix - Alex Botterill and Jake Wightman will both compete in the 800m. Zak Seddon and Lizzie Bird are entered for the 3000m Steeplechase although worth pointing out that Bird was scheduled to run last week and was DNS.

Not a qualifying event, but the GB Diving Championships - basically the Olympic Trials - take place 23-26th May.

New PB of 59.95m for Bekah Walton in round 4 of Javelin in Huelva Surely she'll break the 60m barrier before too long - who knows, it may even be this evening

Anna Henderson has sustained broken collarbone in crash at the women's Vuelta yesterday.

Not sure how, but manage to stay ahead of in the latest ranking release, maintaining a gap of about 160 points. did overtake GB and have opened a lead of 230 points. We could really do with 2 of our guys getting through to the world champs final next month to keep us in the hunt for that second quota spot.

The comments on Facebook and Twitter have certainly been....salty to say the least. I knew Broadhurst had travelled with the squad to Colorado for the training camp, but I wasn't aware that she was due to compete there and hadn't been able to make the weight - assuming the comments online are correct.

Max Stapley secures his first win at World Cup level taking top spot on the podium in Chengdu this weekend.

Triathlon World Cup - Chengdu Men's Elite: 1.) Max Stapley 2.) Jonas Schomburg 3.) Tayler Reid Women's Elite: 1.) Julie Derron 2.) Tilda Mannson 3.) Roksana Slupek

I definitely think we are in a much better position going into Paris compared to where we were ahead of Tokyo. That's more based on the results from last season rather than what we saw this week. We always do well at the Euros and this week's racing didn't have the top Dutch crews and the conditions and lane reordering can distort the results to an extent. I probably won't make medal predictions until after Lucerne when we will hopefully see the rest of the global crews in action, but at the moment, I am feeling bullish on our prospects and could easily see the team taking 6 medals and possible stretch target of 8 with half of those being gold. On the women's eight, there is probably a limit to what they can do and personally I don't see them changing the line-up dramatically. Given the early season form of the women's four, they're unlikely to want to mess with them. That would just leave them with the pair of Edwards and Brew to potentially switch in. I think they will ultimately leave the crews as they are and will keep faith that they will be able to build their results as they go through the rest of the year. Keep saying it, but the World Cup in Lucerne is going to be key.

I don't think that's right - that's based on the world ranking which I think is based on their best 8 results within the last 12 months whereas the Olympic ranking is based on their top 12 results since 1st January 2023. I've seen 3 different ranking lists all coming from FIVB and each showing a different picture but I think this is the version that most media outlets are using (Provisional Olympic Ranking tab): RankingMen (fivb.com) In that version Bello brothers are in 31st place with 5740 points. Grimalt/Grimalt are in the last qualifying spot with 7080 points. So, the gap is about 1300 on that measure but I could be completely wrong.

Just watched back a couple of the races form this weekend and my one area of concern for the British team would be lack of a sprint finish. All of the crews were routinely under-rating the rest of the field and for the most part, they were able to do that whilst matching or exceeding the speed of the competition but when the races got into the last quarter of the race, nations like Italy and Romania upped their rate in 42-44 whereas the Brits rarely upped their rate to 40+.

Am seeing on Twitter that Mouhamadou Fall has been banned for 9 months after testing positive for heptaminol last year but can't find second source confirmation. Anyone know if that's confirmed?

This has been going under the radar but it looks like we're heading for a big reduction in the size of our Badminton team going into Paris. Kirsty Gilmour is safe in women's singles and we should get a spot in the men's doubles with Lane/Vendy but that could be it - no mixed doubles, no women's doubles and no men's singles (although that's not as surprising given the retirement of Toby Penty).

Thoughts on the team announcement: Savannah Stubley - Gets the nod over Demi-Jade Resztan for the 50Kg. Stubley got to the semi-final in Colorado before losing out to Monique Suraci whereas Resztan lost her first bout. Stubley also competed in Busto-Arsizio but lost her first fight. Hopefully she can make more of a fight of it in Bangkok and be in the mix for one of the four quotas available. Elise Glynn - No surprise in the 57Kg - Glynn got to the quarter-finals in Busto-Arsizio and recently won the USA Boxing International Invitational in Colorado where she beat Paris bound Jucielen Romeu in the final. The qualifying conditions in Bangkok should be easier as there are 4 quotas available compared to the two that were on offer in Italy. Amy Broadhurst - Possibly the most controversial selection in the squad. Broadhurst gets the nod over both Shona Whitwell and Gemma Richardson for the 60Kg. Whitwell has had 2 opportunities to get to Paris and has lost in her opening bout both times. She competed in Colorado earlier this month and lost in the first round so it was always going to be difficult to justify selecting her for a third time. Gemma Richardson could feel a little hard done by - she got to the final in Colorado before losing to Yang Wen Lu. It's a bold decision by the selectors and I hope it works out for them. Kiaran Macdonald - No surprise in the 51Kg class. Macdonald got to the quota fight in Italy and came up short against Bibossinov. He should go into the 2nd qualifier as one of the favourites to get a quota if he can get a decent draw. Owain Harris-Allan - Like Kieran Macdonald, Harris-Allan got to the quota fight in the 57Kg class in Busto-Arsizio. He got to the final in Colorado where he came up short against Luiz Oliveira - the same fighter who defeated him in the quota match in Italy. Patris Mughalzai - He gets the nod over Reese Lynch in the 63.5Kg class. Mughalzai gets a second chance to book his spot in Paris after reaching the round of 32 in Busto-Arsizio. It's disappointing for Lynch who was making strong comeback after injury at last year's European Games but perhaps not surprising giving the pair fought in the semi-final of the Colorado event earlier this month. Lewis Richardson - Selectors have kept the faith with Richardson who is picked ahead of Harris Akbar at 71Kg. Richardson fought in Italy but his campaign didn't last long as he was beaten in the first round by Dev Nishant. Hopefully he can get a more favourable draw in Bangkok so that he has a chance to grow into the tournament. Ramtin Musah - This is probably the most surprising selection as Musah is picked over Taylor Bevan for the 80Kg class. OK so Bevan lost in the first round in Busto-Arsizio but in Colorado, he got to the semi-finals whereas Musah lost in the first round. Overall then I think we're sending a pretty strong squad and I can see us getting 3-5 quotas if we can get decent draws.

Wonder why Stubley has been classed as ENG when everyone else is GBR

9th place finish for Bello brothers in Xiamen Challenger . They pick up another 450 ranking points and move up to 25th in the world - I think that's the highest I've seen them but I've only been tracking them over the last 18 months or so. They're still a couple of thousand points short of a quota spot so I think it will be difficult, but not impossible, for them to get direct qualification. Later this week, they will be back in for the Elite 16 event in Brasilia and the good news is that they have direct entry this time so no need to go through qualifying. That will guarantee them another 460 points. They've got a tough pool - to be expected at this level - and have been drawn against Evandro/Arthur, Bryl/Losiak and a qualifier.

State of play with 2 more international regattas before Paris. Men's Sweep Crews: Men's Eight - Followed up their win in Varese with relatively comfortable win at the European Champs. The early season signs are positive that GB should have the measure of Romania and Germany but we've yet to see what the Australian crew can do given this is apparently their top crew for Paris. Will be interesting to see which nations get the final two tickets at the last chance regatta - assume one will be USA and the second will be fought out between Canada and Italy. Men's Four - Beaten twice by a fast-finishing Italian crew at Varese, they steadied the ship/boat in Szeged winning with clear water. The French crew were a bit closer than I would have expected in the heat you don't win anything in the heats so no need to do more than you need to qualify for the finals. Don't think there is any reason to read too much into the defeat in Varese, but this is another class where we really need to see the crews from USA, New Zealand and Australia. Men's Pair - Wynne Griffith and George finally made it to the top step of the medal podium by taking the European title although the Romanians were closely them down pretty quickly in the final stages of the final. They'll take a lot of confidence from the fact that's back-to-back defeats of the Swiss world champions. Women's Sweep Crews: Women's Eight - It's good to see that the selectors are giving the women's eight a decent shot at medaling in Paris. In both Varese and Szeged, the Brits put themselves in a good position but ultimately came unstuck in the second half of the race with Romania able to go from half a length down to half a length up in the space of less than 500m. It's difficult to know the extent to which GB Rowing were prioritising the European champs this year and where they are in their training schedule, but given that that most of the Romanian crew had doubled up in other events, it's a bit disappointing that the Brits weren't able to respond when the Romanians rowed through. Women's Four - In 2022 the women's four were the in-form boat, winning both the World and European Championships. A crew change last year seemed to knock the balance of the crew out of sync and they went from the top of the podium to struggling to medal. They lost their European title to Romania and World title to Netherlands. Going into 2024, the crew have been shuffled again, and the early signs are that the balance has been restored. A win in Varese was followed up this week with the regaining of the European title with the crew able to hold off the fast-finishing Romanians. Women's Pair - Probably the weakest British crew across the 6 sweep boats but worth bearing in mind this is a new crew for this season. Edwards & Brew finished 4th in Varese but struggled with the conditions in Szeged where they finished in 5th. Hopefully they can build their season so that they can be competitive when they get to Paris. Lightweight Crews Women's Lightweight Sculls - I will admit I did a double take when I saw that GB had lost to Greece in the heats. I hadn't realised that it was a scratch crew put together when Emily Craig had to withdraw with an injury. Let's hope the withdrawal was precautionary as Craig & Grant are the closest we have to nailed on certainty for a gold in Paris. Men's Sculling Crews Men's Quadruple Sculls - One of our most frustrating crews who can't seem to find the consistency that would bring them to the podium in Paris. They put if a strong performance in Varese finishing behind the Dutch world champions. unfortunately they couldn't replicate that in Szeged where they finished in 4th place - behind the Italian and Swiss crews that they had beaten just a couple of weeks earlier. Men's Double Sculls - The first of our unqualified crews. The pairing of Collins & Devereaux haven't been able to show the kind of form that would suggest they will be able to get one of the last 2 spots in Paris. In Varese, they won the B final whilst in the European champs, they were 9th overall. On the form we've seen so far this year, Greece, Belgium and Australia have all shown that they can beat the Brits. Men's Single Sculls - It looks like George Bourne has been given the challenge of securing the quota for the event at the last chance regatta next month. He looked good in Varese where he finished 4th behind World Champion Zeidler, World Silver medalist Van Dorp and Italy's Murmolo. He struggled a bit in Szeged. Although he won his heat, he had to put in a mighty sprint in the semi-final and had nothing left when it came to the final and finished in 6th place some 20 seconds behind Zeidler. If he's going to book a spot in Paris, he will need a top-2 finish in the last chance regatta. Women's Sculling Crews Women's Quadruple Sculls - It all went a bit wrong for the crew in Varese where they finished off the podium in 4th. Whatever changes they made in the last couple of weeks seems to have paid off. Although the Ukrainians led for three quarters of the race, the Brits were able to row through and ended up with a comfortable win. Hopefully we see them go head-to-head against the Dutch in Lucerne Women's Double Sculls - A new pairing for 2024 - Hodgkins-Byrne & Wilde opened their season at the Europeans where they won the B-final to finish 7th overall. They are going to need to find a bit of speed if they are going to qualify for Paris at the last chance regatta. Women's Single Sculls - We didn't field an entry in Varese World Cup or at the Europeans so not sure whether that means that we are not going to go after the quota at the last chance regatta. Overall, I would say that we are in a pretty good place with good medal prospects in 6-8 of the events - but then I'd probably have said the same thing going into Tokyo. I'm probably not as confident when it comes to our prospects for the final qualifying regatta but will reserve judgement until the entry lists are published.

All eyes on Badminton next week to see if Townend can complete the Grand Slam.

Last couple of events before the end of the month. 30-Apr: Ibero-American Meeting Huelva 2024 - Think this is the first big European athletics meet of the season and there's a handful of Brits in action. Amelia Campbell is due to compete in the Shot Put. Current season's best is 18.03 from an indoor competition in January. She'll be targeting the UKA standard of 18.67m but that would require a significant PB. Bekah Walton is due to open her season when she competes in the javelin - possibly the weakest event in GB athletics. She set a PB of 59.76 in June last year so she'll be looking to get over 60m for the first time. She's added 2m to her PB in each of the last 2 seasons - if she can keep that trend going in 2024, she would be able to hit the UKA standard of 61.50. In the men's 5000m, Charles Wheeler and Zakariya Mahamed will be competing. Wheeler has a PB of 13:20.17 from earlier this year and will need to drop a further 15 seconds if he wants to hit the OQS. Mahamed's PB is 13:47.43 so it would need a big drop to be contending for a spot in Paris. Seamus Derbyshire was initially down to compete in the 400m Hurdles but he no longer appears on the start lists. 30-Apr: The Stanford v Cal Big Meet - No entry list yet but possible that Anna Purchase may be in action