Rafa Maciel

I don't disagree with your broader point, but I think in the team sprint, you can still lose if your lead-off and second line riders aren't strong enough - even if you have the best individual sprinter on your final leg. I criticise others for sharing opinions that are little more than their hopes and wishes without them being backed up by data so I'll try and put my point across looking at the 2023 Worlds, the 2024 Europeans and Hong Kong Nations Cup - the last 3 occasions where the teams went head-to-head. Opening Lap: Cyclist '23 Worlds '24 Euros '24 HK NC Pauline Grabosch 18.945 18.650 18.935 Lauren Bell 19.036 Katy Marchant 18.750 18.763 From this small sample, whoever wins the opening lap goes on to take the title - it's not definitive but it's an important trend. One of the reasons I think Marchant gets the nod over Bell is her consistency - putting down 3 rides under 19 seconds - and in particular hitting 18.7 in the final Second Line Rider: Cyclist '23 Worlds '24 Euros '24 HK NC Emma Hinze 13.289 13.455 13.485 Sophie Capewell 13.394 13.725 13.815 Going through the data, I can't find an instance where Capewell is faster than Hinze- not saying it hasn't happened, I just can't find it in the data files I have. The question then becomes how close can Capewell go to Hinze. If she can keep it within a couple of tenths of a second, then she will put the team in a strong position. If it strays out towards half a second, then it becomes unlikely that GB will come out on top. Third Line Rider: Cyclist '23 Worlds '24 Euros '24 HK NC Lea Friedrich 13.614 13.794 13.929 Emma Finucane 13.493 13.676 13.514 The stat shows Finucane's progress over the last year - she's now consistently the fastest of the 3rd line riders. If she takes over in the lead, I don't see Friedrich being able to catch her. If she takes over 0.1 - 0.2 seconds behind, I think GB would be marginal favourites but any deficit beyond 0.2 becomes more difficult to predict. So, based on this, I would argue that the team sprint gold will be won or lost with the second-line rider. Great though Finucane is, she needs to be in touch when she takes over -she doesn't need to be ahead, but she needs to be close.

Shane Rose participation in Olympics in doubt after a heavy fall in cross country session this week. He was taken to intensive care where he received treatment for broken femur and fractured pelvis.

Mixed bag of results for in Hong Kong Great win for the women's team sprint - I think we've got our squad set for Paris now with Marchant, Capewell and Finucane. I'm not quite ready to jump on to the "they're the favourites for the Gold" bandwagon, but the team has to be regarded as the strongest medal chance in the velodrome. Men's elimination - great gold for Will Perrett who never looked in trouble but not sure it will be enough to get him a spot on the team for Paris. Men's team pursuit finished in 6th. Sure it is disappointing, but this is definitely not our top team and they still did enough to finish ahead of Belgium and China so it's done no harm to Olympic quota spot. Men's team sprint continues to be the runt of the litter. Sure they didn't have Jack Carlin in the squad but I'm not sure that he would have made much of a difference. have come on so far in the last 12-18 months that I don't see GB getting on to the podium when we get to Paris.

Women's Team Sprint

Disappointing result for women's team sprint - 47.750 and likely to finish 7th overall. Feel they really needed a top 5 finish if they wanted to put pressure on Canada for the last quota spot.

The field for the women's team pursuit is now set: is the only team who could possibly change the dynamic but in reality they won't - they already have their 2 NC scores so the maximum points score they could now register is 7000 (but to do that, they would need to win the event in Milton) so... and cannot now be caught and can therefore be regarded as qualified. have an event in hand - need to compete in Milton and post a time to qualify. have their 2 NC scores and in theory could be caught, but in reality, they won't be. both have an event in hand so assuming they compete in Milton and finish, they can't be caught. didn't compete in Adelaide or Hong Kong are still ahead of 11th placed China. Assuming they go to Milton and finish, they too will qualify.

According to the start list, Lavreyson wasn't on the team. It was Hoogland, Kool and Van den Berg.

Strange that the men's team sprint aren't competing in Hong Kong - they were shown on the entry lists published at the end of February.

squad confirmed for the IAAF Cross Country World Championships later this month. GREAT BRITAIN AND NORTHERN IRELAND TEAM ARE BELGRADE-BOUND FOR THE 2024 WORLD ATHLETICS CROSS COUNTRY CHAMPIONSHIPS | British Athletics By my quick tally, that's a team of 22 athletes and 9 support staff - broadly in line with the size of teams we sent to Bathurst last year and to Aarhus in 2019. Hopefully this will be enough to put a stop to the nonsense notion that UKA's financial woes will prevent us from sending a squad to Rome for the Europeans.

Start lists for this weekend's Track Cycling World Cup in Hong Kong are up on UCI website.

Championships got underway today in Liverpool with the juniors and disability athletes getting the action started. From an Olympic selection perspective, the main event kicks off on Saturday - unfortunately I've not been able to track down an official entry list. On the men's side, it will be interesting to see if Regini-Moran is fit and able to compete. For the women, the focus will be on who can raise their game enough to get on to the squad. In the absence of Gadriova, there are 2 places up for grabs.

Going into this week, I think the minimum we would have expected would have been 2-3 quotas so to come away with the lower end of that has to be viewed as disappointing.

Despite the best efforts of GB Boxing to spin this week as a great success, objectively this is the second consecutive qualifying tournament where the squad has under delivered and as @Cinnamon Bun says, unless there is a dramatic shift in performance/luck in Bangkok, are heading for the smallest boxing squad since Beijing with no obvious medal contenders. Comparing to 2020 is difficult - the number of quotas has dropped by around 50 or so and the weight classes have been changed, but it's pretty obvious that the current crop of athletes haven't performed at the same level as the squad for Tokyo: In 2020 GB qualified 11 boxers at the European qualification event. In 2023 GB qualified 3 boxers at the European qualification event. If you adjust the 2020 European qualification event results to apply the 2024 quotas, GB would have qualified 8 boxers - 5 men (52Kg, 63Kg, 69Kg, 80Kg and +91Kg) and 3 women (51Kg, 60Kg and 75Kg). Conversely, if you applied the 2023 European Games results to the Tokyo quotas, GB would only have qualified 2 men (51Kg and +92Kg) and 2 women (54Kg and 66Kg).

seem to be having a bit of 'mare in these quota fights - 0-3 so far.

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.