Rafa Maciel

The quotas will be awarded to the top 8 NOCs - so if a country gets 2 finalists, the quotas will be awarded to the next country based on their performance in Q2. I think it is similar to shooting qualification - the quotas are awarded to the NOC, but the same athlete cannot win a second quota next year through the world cup series.

Having been dropped by GB Judo for the squad for the Europeans, Acelya Toprak has switched allegiance to with immediate effect (and immediately jumps into a continental quota spot having been at best an also ran all season) Acelya Toprak to Transfer to Azerbaijan (britishjudo.org.uk) These kind of transfers really piss me off - I could be wrong and she could have a long ancestry of Azerbaijanis in her family - but it feels like a pretty cynical move. Now I am really hoping that either Nairne or Smythe-Davis qualify, draw her in the first round in Paris and throw her for Ippon within the first 10 seconds of the contest.

Have rewatched last weekend's UCI Track Champions League event - taking place on the same velodrome which will be used for the Olympics next year - and it doesn't seem to be a great facility from a sprint perspective. The finishing straight seems to be quite short, so if you are in the lead going into the final bend the chances are you are going to take the win.

I agree - If there is a limit on the number of quotas each NOC can qualify from a specific qualification pathway, it is explicitly laid out in the text of the document.

You're right - it was an absolute horror show for although some of the guys did get some pretty tough draws. Will ignore the women because I still think we are well placed to qualify in 5 of the weight classes and have realistic medal prospects in both Giles and Renshall (She wasn't at the Euros after picking up injury in Zagreb). On the women's side, I would probably be most disappointed for Nekoda Smythe-Davis who had to fight for her place in the squad and wasn't able to take advantage of the opportunity. Had high hopes for Sam Hall to do well as he has had some decent form over the last couple of weeks, but he drew 4th seed Khyar in the 1st round which was always going to be difficult. I just wish he and Charlie Young had been reversed in the draw because I think Hall could have had the beating of Garcia Torne but that could just be wishful thinking. Both Petgrave and Moorhead need to get their s**t together and start banking some points PDQ or they will see their potential quota places disappearing quicker than Usain Bolt. On a side note, was very surprised that Olympics.com site was suggesting that Wesley Greenidge (+100Kg) was one of the British athletes to watch as a potential qualifier for Paris. He is so far off the pace that the suggestion that he could qualify is almost laughable.

The 2023 continental championships - Asian Games, PanAmerican/Oceanian championships and this weekend's Europeans count towards the first qualifying period - so should they be credited at 50%? Looking at IJF website, they've credited 100% for Asian games which seems a bit strange.

Not that I've been able to find. Gracenote just publish the medal numbers. Some media outlets had published the full predictions for specific countries, but not many of them. Hopefully more details will be available next year as they get closer to the games.

Nielsen's Gracenote Virtual Medal Table - October 2023 Gracenote have released their updated VMT as at the end of October: NOC Gold Silver Bronze Total Change Since Last Release 38 44 45 127 Up 1 medal overall with 3 additional golds 31 20 24 75 No change in total medal number. 2 additional golds with 2 less bronze 27 17 11 53 Down 5 medals overall. Gold medals drop by 4. Silver medals are up 1 and bronze medals down by 2. 17 22 26 65 Total remains the same, but gold medals drop by 1 and silvers drop by 2. 16 9 13 38 No change to total medals but gold medals are up by 2. 15 17 17 49 Total remains the same - gold and silver medals both down by 1. 15 15 26 56 Gains 1 medal overall. Projected to win an additional 3 gold medals. 13 15 20 48 No change to total medal total. Gold medals drop by 1 whilst silver drops by 3. 10 14 13 37 Projected to win 5 additional medals overall including 1 additional gold medal and 2 silvers. 7 7 9 23 No change to the overall number of medals but projection drops 3 gold medals down to silver Since the initial release in July, both and have shed 5 gold medals, whilst have picked up 5 golds. are up 2 golds since July whilst are up 3. Bracing myself for the potential backlash... but gold medals are dwindling away - down 7 since July.

You are definitely more optimistic than I am at the moment - both in terms of which British athletes are going to qualify for the Olympics and where we could potentially pick up medals, but I don't see picking up medals in any team sports - and after tonight's performance, I am not even confident that GB will qualify in women's football which would be huge disappointment.

I think I've commented elsewhere on UK Swimming's selection policy - long story short, I am not a fan. There is no rational justification for putting an arbitrary cap on the number of athletes that you are willing to take - especially when you set that cap a year ahead of the selection event. Looking at the times so far in the qualifying window I think you are probably right and there will be some athletes who achieve the 'OCT' but don't ultimately make it on to the GB team, but I would expect that number to be in the low single digits. I find swimming selection hard to predict because of the level of doubling up that we see but it will be interesting to see how GB Swimming deal with athletes who have the GB qualifying standard in one event but only has the OQT in another - like Freya Colbert who has the GB standard for the 200 Freestyle but not in the 400 Freestyle - will they select them to the team and allow them to compete in all of the events where they have the OQT or will they restrict them to the events where they have the British standard. I get the impression that the selectors already know who they want to take, and they have shown that when those athletes don't quite perform as expected, they will be willing to move the goalposts so whilst the policy might say that you have to achieve the qualifying time in the final, they have left themselves with enough flexibility to take the athletes that they want to.

The question of ratings and viewer interest is a separate issue to team size but for what it is worth, I think UKA have done an abysmal job in promoting the sport in the UK. But on the issue of the GB team in athletics and why it has been picked up by the BBC, it comes down to a question of fairness - athletes across about a dozen sports earn their place at Olympics through their performances across the year building their ranking. UK Athletics has chosen to ignore this and is likely to be the only GB federation which will reject validly earned Olympic quotas. It was disappointing that there was more outrage from athletes over the sacking of Stephen Maguire than there was about 19 athletes being denied the chance to compete at the World Champs. Hopefully a lot of those folk who had their World Athletics invitation rejected this year are able to hit the qualifying standard - it would be the best way to stick two fingers up to the UKA selectors.

I think GB already have around 30-32 athletes who have hit the OQT within the qualifying window so whilst I agree with the sentiment, your number is probably a bit too pessimistic. So, unless something dramatic happens over the off-season, the squad is already heading towards the low 40s but has the potential to creep into the low 50s.

Pretty dominant performance from Toby Roberts to finish the semi-final with a 50+ point lead over Adam Ondra. Unfortunately have a nasty feeling that the positions are going to be reversed when the rubber hits the road in tomorrow's all important final.

The Giro points are still there so I don't think that was the issue. I cross referenced the list of events for Ludwig in the rankings list from 17th, 18th and 24th and the individual stages and points are all exactly the same - the issue seems to be in their adding up of the totals. Maybe the batteries in the office calculator were running low when they put together the list for the 18th

Assume you are referring to the women's team rather than the men's and the answer is..... maybe - definitely one or the other of them have qualified but not both. Ultimately I think it is going to come down to the order that they apply the quota reallocation. So according to the qualification document, quota reallocation comes at the end of the qualification pathway. On that basis, I think that the quota order would be: 1.) World Ranking 2.) Results from 2023 World Championship 3.) Results from the 2023 Continental Championships 4.) Host quota reallocation and unused/rejected quotas. I think that the quotas from '23 world champs should go to and In the continental championships, there would be no change for Africa whilst and would be promoted to take the continental quotas for America. For Asia, I think that would retain their continental quota with replacing China for the second. That would leave the 2 host quotas to be reallocated to the world rankings list. On that basis, I would expect them to go to and . However the font of wisdom responsible for updating Wikipedia seem to take an alternate approach and they believe that would be the recipient of the second Asian continental quota. In their version of events, they have the host quotas being reallocated to the ranking list before the application of the continental quotas.

The ranking from the 17th is the final ranking for the 2023 season and is the one that will be used by UCI to allocate the quotas. The ranking list from the 18th is the first ranking for the 2024 season. In theory they should be the same but for some reason the ranking points total for Cecilie Ludwig has been reduced from 2,202 to 1,984 - but there is no reason for that to have happened and it has been corrected in the rankings release from 24th October.

First leg of the UCI Track Champions League Track Cycling in Mallorca: Sprint Events Women's Sprint 1.) Alessa-Catriona Propster 2.) Emma Finucane The final was a repeat of the European Under-23 sprint final - both in terms of the cyclists involved and the end result. Women's Keirin 1.) Ellesse Andrews 2.) Martha Bayona 3.) Alessa-Catriona Propster Emma Finucane failed to make the final - whilst she has made great strides in the individual sprint event, her tactics in the keirin are still questionable. Would love to see Chris Hoy getting involved in the squad and helping develop her keirin racing a bit more. Men's Sprint: 1.) Harri Lavreysen 2.) Tom Derache Men's Keirin: 1.) Harri Lavreysen 2.) Kevin Quintero 3.) Matthew Richardson Endurance Events Men's Scratch 1.) Eiya Hashimoto 2.) Mark Stewart 3.) Tuur Dens Men's Elimination 1.) Dylan Bibic 2.) William Tidball 3.) Jules Hesters Women's Scratch 1.) Lily Williams 2.) Katy Archibald 3.) Maggie Coles-Lyster Women's Elimination 1.) Katy Archibald 2.) Anita Stenberg 3.) Lily Williams Archibald looked to be racing with a lot more freedom than we saw at Glasgow.

Think that is Jorgensen's 3rd win on the world cup circuit this year - she's clearly desperate to get that Olympic call up for Paris but I struggle to see her getting one of two remaining spots on the team for USA.

I think Adam Peaty will probably be pretty pleased with how his World Cup series has gone having shown good progression through the 3 legs, particularly given he obtained the Olympic qualifying standard today. Among the positives to take away I would say is the fact that in Budapest, both his heat and final time were under 1:00.00 - something he didn't achieve in either Berlin or Athens - and the gap between himself and Qin has gone from over 2 seconds in Berlin to 1.43 seconds in Budapest. He still has a huge fight on his hands to successfully defend his title, but given he has had limited training and preparation, he has got himself back into the kind of shape where he would be in the mix to make the final. But if he is looking to get a medal, then he will need to drop at least another second and if he wants to take home gold, he's probably going to need to drop close to 2 seconds. I don't know if he will be able to do that, but I have a feeling that he will at least enjoy the challenge.

Athletics - Marathon Policy Document: 2024-Olympic-Games-Marathon-Advance-Information-1.pdf (uka.org.uk) Key Points: There are 3 rounds of selection spread over 2 selection meetings 1st selection meeting is scheduled for 19-Feb where up to 2 athletes will be selected. Athletes selected in round 1 will have achieved a top-8 finish at the 2023 Budapest World Championship (Spoiler alert: nobody will be selected under this criteria) Athletes selected in round 2 will have achieved the World Athletics qualifying standard and have demonstrated potential to achieve a top-8 finish in Paris. The second selection meeting is scheduled for 22-Apr. Athletes selected in round 3 will have achieved the World Athletics qualifying standard and have demonstrated potential to achieve a top-8 finish in Paris. Additional Factors: Preference will likely be given to athletes achieving the qualifying standard before 19-Feb as this will give the athlete time to prepare adequately with a view to maximising performance at Paris.

Athletics - Track & Field With the Road To Paris tool now live, it is as good a time as any to look at what will probably be the most controversial selection policy of the lot. Policy Document: 2024-Olympic-Games-Track-and-Field-Selection-Policy-July2023_Final.pdf (uka.org.uk) Key Points: They have decided to stick with the same basic selection policy used for this year's world Champs. The selection event for 10000m will be on 18-May whilst the wider UK Athletics trials are scheduled for 28-30th June. In order to be considered for selection, athletes must meet 3 criteria - 1.) Meet eligibility criteria (age, passport etc.); 2.) Have achieved the World Athletics qualification standard or, where available, the UKA Selection standard; and 3.) Show current form. The selection process will be managed in 5 tranches: The top 2 finishers at the trials will be automatically selected if they have the world Athletics qualifying standard. Any individual medalist from Budapest World Championship will be selected in the corresponding event. Eligible athletes with the World Athletics qualifying standards World Athletics ranking invites for athletes with UKA selection standard - NB there are no UKA selection standards for any events between 200m - 5000m, the 400m hurdles and the women's 3000m steeplechase. UK Athletics will not accept any WA ranking invites in these events. Relay selection. Additional Factors: Attendance at the trials is described as "compulsory" but as always it will be more compulsory for some than others The requirement to show current form will relate to performances between 1-Apr - 30-Jun 2024.

The World Athletics Road to Paris site is now live: Road To | World Athletics

This has been bugging me all night and I think I have finally figured out why there were adjustments made to and ranking totals and why the UCI needed to make a second release of the rankings. Their previously published data did not include the points from Under 23 races - specifically any U23 Class 2 Stage Events. Only 2 races were impacted - the Watersley Womens Challenge and the Tour De L'Avenir Femmes - and both took place in early-mid September. Anna Shackley picked up 27 points in Tour De L'Avenir whilst Dominika Wlodarczyk picked up points in the Watersley Challenge. Other nations impacted by this include Germany and Italy. Now I might be able to get some sleep without having ranking lists running through my mind.

To muddy the waters still further, Olympics.com are going with the original rankings list which had ahead of on the women's side. Road cycling at París 2024: Quota distribution for next Olympic Games decided following publication of UCI World Ranking by Nations (olympics.com)

Oh come on!! I come back from dinner to discover UCI have published a new set of rankings It really shouldn't be that difficult for them to keep a running total of the points. From what I can see, seem to have been awarded an additional 27 points which was enough to take them ahead of - unfortunately the links to the historic rankings aren't working so I can't see which rider has had the additional points awarded. None of the ranking riders for GB were in action this week so I assume this difference is down to the same issue that saw Dominika Wlodarczyk gain 36 points without racing. Hopefully UCI will be pretty quick to issue something official to clarify who has won what, but worst-case scenario, we may have to wait until 17th November before the picture becomes clear