Rafa Maciel

PanAmerican/Oceania Continental Championships - Day 1 Men's 60Kg 1.) Matheus Takaki 2.) Joshua Katz 3.) Michel Augusto & Jonathan Charon Men's 66Kg 1.) Julien Frascadore 2.) Orlando Polanco 3.) Juan Hernandez & Willian Lima Men's 73Kg 1.) Daniel Cargnin 2.) Arthur Margelidon 3.) Magdiel Estrada & Gilberto Cardoso Women's 48Kg 1.) Mary Dee Vargas Ley 2.) Edna Carrillo 3.) Natasha Ferreira & Maria Celia Laborde Women's 52Kg 1.) Larissa Pimenta 2.) Paulina Martinez 3.) Jessica Pereira & Tinka Easton Women's 57Kg 1.) Christa Deguchi 2.) Rafaela Silva 3.) Jessica Klimkait & Brisa Gomez Women's 63Kg 1.) Katharina Haecker 2.) Prisca Awiti Alcaraz 3.) Hannah Martin & Maylin Del Toro Carvajal

Sarajevo European Open Results - Day 1 Men's 60Kg 1.) Yam Wolczak 2.) Lior Rafailov 3.) Ariel Shulman & Enzo Jean Men's 66Kg 1.) Sam Hall 2.) Islam Rahimov 3.) Biagio D Angelo & Giuseppe De Tullio Men's 73Kg 1.) Nariman Mirzayev 2.) Naim Matt 3.) Eric Ham & Leonardo Valeriani Women's 48Kg 1.) Ellen Salens 2.) Gemma Maria Gomez Antona 3.) Lisa Dengg & Helena Grau Women's 52Kg 1.) Ana Viktorija Puljiz 2.) Leonie Gonzalez 3.) Lea Metrot & Roza Gyertyas Women's 57Kg 1.) Andjela Samardzic 2.) Lisa Grabner 3.) Romi Dori & Ophelie Vellozzi Women's 63Kg 1.) Melodie Turpin 2.) Miriam Boi 3.) Nadja Bazynski & Amanda Zuaznabar-Torres

In a surprising move, GB Cycling have confirmed a squad for the European Championships at the end of the month. I think this will be the first time since 2019 that have entered a squad: Men's Squad Ethan Vernon - Road Race Luke Rowe - Road Race Connor Swift - Road Race Ben Turner - Road Race Mark Stewart - Road Race Jake Stewart - Road Race Sam Watson - Road Race Josh Tarling - Road Race and Individual Time Trial Not the strongest squad that GB could have sent but at least they are taking part. It is unlikely that it is going to make big difference to their overall ranking points total with Ethan Vernon being the only ranking rider involved. He was in good form in Tour of Britain though and if he could get a top 5 finish, that would be a great result. If things went well for Josh Tarling, there is a chance he could dislodge Fred Wright as the 8th counter for GB but to do that he would need to win the ITT and score in the road race. Women's Squad Elinor Barker - Road Race and Individual Time Trial Anna Henderson - Road Race and Individual Time Trial Alice Barnes - Road Race Claire Steels - Road Race Pfeiffer Georgi - Road Race Beckie Storrie - Road Race That's a pretty strong squad from a ranking points perspective with Henderson, Steels and Georgi all counting. In addition, Anna Shackley is also in the Under-23 squad. Assuming all four of those riders finish safely in the road race and Anna Henderson is able to replicate her World Champs form in the ITT, a top 5 finish in the world ranking begins to look a lot more likely.

Ultimately, the Victorian Government defaulted on a validly entered contract, so it was always likely that they were going to have to pay substantial compensation when they decided to cancel. The compensation is actually to be paid across 3 organisations - Commonwealth Games Federation, Commonwealth Games Federation Partnerships and Commonwealth Games Australia. Although the breakdown is not being made public right now, the assumption is that the lion's share will go to CGF and CGFP. This will be to compensate from the loss of revenue/sponsorship etc. from the cancellation but there would be no reason why this money could not be used to support a new host. With regards to India - there were initial suggestions that they could be interested in stepping in as replacement and that may yet happen. Despite the points you raise, ironically the biggest factor in favour of India stepping in as hosts would be to maintain those key Indian sports on the schedule and in particular, ensuring that shooting remains in the Commonwealth schedule. As you say, Indian officials were not happy that shooting was not on the programme for Birmingham but it shouldn't really have been a surprise to anyone that this was going to be the case - the pistols used in shooting events have been banned in the UK since the Dunblane school massacre. As for Canada, they're not on the hook for any compensation because they didn't drop out of hosting - Alberta, after exploring whether or not to bid decided not to proceed. Now that the question of compensation has been settled, the CGF focus will turn to finding an alternate host. They will be making the argument that hosting a games does not have to cost billions of dollars but it does need "mature" hosts to come forward i.e cities that have existing facilities in place, don't need major infrastructure upgrades to be made and are willing to make pragmatic decisions.

Women's squad was announced earlier this month after the designation selection event was held at the end of August. There are no great surprises: Jessica Gadirova Alice Kinsella Ondine Achampong Georgia-Mae Fenton Ruby Evans This is pretty much the same squad as the 2022 WC with the exception of Ruby Evans who will be making senior team debut. The DSE was won by Gadirova on a score of 54.55 - 0.649 points down on the score that won her the all-around bronze medal last year. It is perhaps slightly ironic that she actually outscored her 2022 WC results on all of the apparatus except floor. Alice Kinsella took second place on 53.15. Overall this is down around 2 points on last year but worth pointing out that she didn't go for big routines - her degree of difficulty was down 0.3 across most of the apparatus. Rounding out the top three was Ondine Achampong with 52.3. Interesting decision to take Ruby Evans - no disrespect to her but she didn't seem to excel on any individual apparatus so perhaps she is going more for the experience rather in expectation that she will be called on to take part.

That'll explain it then

Safe to assume they're just very slow to update - the Olympic ranking hasn't been updated since the Polish Challenger event in early August so doesn't even include the results from World Champs either.

That's not quite correct - New Zealand sent and won the Men's Eight at the FQR.

Ultimately, I guess it comes down to personal preference about which source to use - I prefer to use the UCI ranking as they the "golden-source" and I can trace the data lineage. Also I realised that PCS was publishing incorrect data for the women's tour ranking which rang alarm bells about their processes.

Looks like racked up another qualifier last week's Brussels Diamond League meeting with Jess Warner-Judd posting a new PB of 14:51.53 for 5000m.

Lahore dropped as host of Olympic Qualifying Tournament. Men's Olympic hockey qualifier withdrawn from Pakistan (insidethegames.biz)

I think got a 2nd quota for the men's time trial with a top 10 finish at the world champs, but the women didn't so they should only have 1 spot in the TT.

Given Llewelin's crap individual performance yesterday, that is a depressing result.

With the latest release of the UCI world rankings, it is beginning to look like men are going to miss out on qualifying a full team for Paris. Of the British ranking riders only Hugh Carthy and Geraint Thomas were taking part in the Vuelta and they are currently only going to pick up around 200 ranking points. In fact, Geraint Thomas looks to be just going through the motions and if he loses much more time over the remaining stages, he will fail to win any ranking points for the final classification. In contrast, there were 4 ranking riders for Spain at the Vuelta and they are having a blinder. They are currently on track for almost 2,500 ranking points from the event - around 700 more than they won in the 2022 edition. That will probably move around 500 points ahead of in the next world ranking. There are still a fair number of events on the men's tour but the numbers don't look great for GB and their best hope may be for to drop back. The only upside for team GB is the fact that they are defending far fewer points than either France or Spain between now and the ranking window closing, but going against them is the fact that a quarter of their ranking riders (Cavendish & Geoghan Hart) are recovering from injury so are not competing and it is likely that GB wont send a team to take part in the European championships.

Yeah - we really needed to be picking up a couple of extra quotas through the world champs. On the rankings - isn't there an Italian who is also ranked ahead of him?

Yet another frustrating performance from Team GB but one that feels like it has been repeated across a lot of sports - the team started the Olympic cycle strongly but not bringing their A-Game when it really matters. Realistically Llewellin is down to the 2 last opportunities to get a quota - next year's European Shotgun Champs and the Final Qualifying Tournament - and I am not confident that he's going to do it. To make it worse, he and Amber Rutter would have been a strong pairing for the Mixed Skeet Event.

He was there for ranking points only so wasn't eligible for progression to the final.

Anyone have a site for live scores - the SIUS site is killing me

By my reckoning, we have 5 weeks of action left on the road before the Paris quotas are set so though it would be good to see where we are in the fight for Olympic Road Cycling quotas starting with the women. Women's Tour 05-Sep - 11-Sep: Class 1 Stage Event: Tour Cycliste Feminin International De l'Ardeche 13-Sep: Class 1 1 Day Event: Grisette Grand Prix De Wallonie 15-Sep: Class 1 1 Day Event: Chrono Feminin De La Gatineau 16-Sep: Class 1 1 Day event: Tour De Gatineau 15-Sep - 17-Sep: World Tour Event: Tour De Romandie Feminin 15-Sep - 16-Sep: Class 2 Stage Event: AG Tour De La Semois 17-Sep: Class 2 1 Day Event: Grand Prix International D'Isbergues - Pas De Calais Feminin 30-Sep: 1 Day ProSeries: Giro Dell'Emilia Internazionale Donne Elite 3-Oct: Class 2 1 Day Event: GP Internacional De Ciclismo De Santa Catarina Femenina 3-Oct: Class 1 1 Day Event: Binche Chimay Binche Pour Dames 3-Oct: Class 1 1 Day Event: Tre Valli Varesine Women's Race 4-Oct: Class 2 1 Day event: GP Urubici De Ciclismo Femenina 5-Oct: Class 2 1 Day Event: Grand Tour De Ciclismo De SC Femenina 10-Oct - 11-Oct: Class 2 Stage Event: Tour of Wenzhou 12-Oct - 14-Oct: World Tour Event: Tour of Chongming Island In addition to the 15 UCI events, there is also the European Road Cycling Championships at the end of September. This, and the fact that most of the events in October are taking place in Asia or South America mean it is unlikely that we will see a huge number of the top ranked European riders in action in October so we should know where the big team quotas for Paris are going to go before the qualification window officially closes. At the moment, and are pretty much nailed on for full team of 4 riders. That will leave and fighting it out for the remaining 2 spots to get full team of 4 riders. All the indications are that it could be very close. Australia is currently sitting in 4th with 5,330 points. They were defending around 350 points from last year's SIMAC tour but their results this year were not as strong so their points total should drop to around 5,000 next week. They will need strong performances from Amanda Spratt, Brodie Chapman and Ruby Roseman-Gannon in next week's Tour De Romandie if they want to secure a top five finish. Switzerland is currently in 5th place in the world ranking with 5,146 points. They weren't defending any points from SIMAC tour and are only defending around 200 points between now and the ranking cut off in October, so they are on track to finish ahead of Australia. With both Marlen Reusser and Elise Chabbey in the Tour De Romandie, at this stage I'd say it is highly likely that Switzerland should end up with full team of 4 riders for Paris. France is in 6th place with 5,108 points but they have not defended their 400 points from last year's SIMAC tour. This loss will be off-set by points gained in the Tour De l'Ardeche but because it is a Class 1 event, the off-setting points will only be in the range of 40-50 so I expect their points total to drop down to around 4,700 next week. At the moment, I think the only ranking French rider to be scheduled to take part in the Tour De Romandie is Juliette Labous which is going to make it difficult for them to maintain their push for top five finish unless they have stellar European Champs. Great Britain currently has 4,686 points and are in 7th place in the world rankings. They are defending a little over 300 points between now and the close of the ranking window including 170 points from the SIMAC tour. Both Anna Henderson and Pfeiffer Georgi had a strong SIMAC tour this year and between them picked up over 600 ranking points. That would take them to around 5117 points and should be enough to move them ahead of both France and possibly Australia. Next week Anna Shackley, Claire Steels and Lizzie Deignan are all scheduled to line up for the Tour De Romandie and will hope to accumulate some additional points to keep them in the hunt for top five. Ideally, they would like at least 1 rider in the top 10 or 2 within the top 20 but it is classy field so it may come down to hoping that Australia don't outscore them. At the moment, I think that the battle for the fifth place in the rankings and the final full quota team is likely to be between Australia and Great Britain. In theory, Britain should have a slight edge by virtue of the fact that they have the continental championships to come - but for some reason (probably smugness) GB Cycling haven't taken part in the European champs for the last few years so they are potentially writing off perhaps 100 extra ranking points which seems like a mad decision. Without the extra European Champs points, it really could go either way - my calculations have GB ahead by a little over 100 points - but may come down to how well each team does in the Tour De Romandie.

Weekly round up of some of this week's action on the road: Men's Events Tour of Britain 1.) Wout Van Aert 2.) Tobias Halland Johannessen 3.) Damien Howson Grand Prix Cycliste de Quebec 1.) Arnaud De Lie 2.) Corbin Strong 3.) Michael Matthews Grand Prix Cycliste de Montreal 1.) Adam Yates 2.) Pavel Sivakov 3.) Alex Aranburu Deba Women's Events SIMAC Ladies Tour 1.) Lotte Kopecky 2.) Lorena Wiebes 3.) Anna Henderson

I was quite surprised that didn't put Miles Devereaux into the Single Sculls. Although he eventually finished in 7th place, he put in a great performance at the Under 23 Worlds this year and he was in Belgrade as a reserve so definitely think that was a missed opportunity. As for the final regatta I would guess GB will be targeting the single and double sculls boats (not expecting them to go after the lightweight double sculls) but I think we'll be lucky if we get 2 additional quotas.

A lot depends on how many tournaments she is going to enter but realistically there are only two big set pieces left this year for her - the Taiyuan Grand Prix and the Manchester Grand-Prix Final. Outside of those there are G-1 level tournaments pretty much every week that she could take part in but in all likelihood, she's not going to compete in the immediate run-up or aftermath of those 2 big events so that probably leaves her with a maximum of 4 G-1 Level events that she could fit into her schedule: 23-Sept: Belgrade Open (G-1 Level) 10 Points 10-Oct: Taiyuan Grand Pric (G-6 Level) 60 Points 21-Oct: Qatar Oper (G-1 Level) 10 Points 28-Oct: Either Dracula Open or Swedish Open (G-1 Level) 10 Points 3-Nov: Cyprus Open (G-1 Level) 10 Points 11-Nov: French Open (G-1 Level) 10 Points 2-Dec: Manchester Grand-Prix Final (G-10 Level) 100 Points So, if she went all out for qualification and won everything there would be around 200 points available but worth bearing in mind that competitors from Asia and Pan-American region will also have their continental championships (G-4 Level) in this window. Before everyone piles in - I am not saying she is going to win everything or that it is highly likely that she is going to qualify. I am simply making the case that there is a very narrow path for her to qualify through the rankings. I think that the picture will be much clearer after Taiyuan - if she goes out in the early rounds, then the path to qualification probably won't be there for her.

Potentially some early indications that Lauren Williams is going to chase qualifying points - she appears on the entry list for the Serbia Open later this month. It is just G1 level event so only 10 points on offer for the winner. I think she has probably left herself too much to do but it is good to see that she isn't going to give up without a fight.

Karlovy Vary World Cup Men 1.) Morgan Pearson 2.) Mark Devay 3.) Jonas Schomburg . Women 1.) Gwen Jorgensen 2.) Rachel Klamer 3.) Marlene Gomez-Goggel This is Jorgensen's 2nd consecutive win at World Cup level after she also won in Valencia last weekend.

Les Portes du Soleil World Cup Men's Short Course 1.) Victor Koretzky 2.) Jordan Sarrou 3.) Luca Schwarzbauer Women's Short Course 1.) Puck Pieterse 2.) Evie Richards 3.) Alessandra Keller Men's Cross Country 1.) Victor Koretzky 2.) Nino Schurter 3.) Vlad Dascalu Women's Cross Country 1.) Mona Mitterwallner 2.) Puck Pieterse 3.) Pauline Ferrand Prevot