Rafa Maciel

After a break for the lightweight singles, more dreams of free croissants and pain-aux-chocolat in the athletes village are over: Men's Lightweight Double Sculls Men's Pair Men's Double Sculls

First batch of Olympic events complete on Day 4 and more boats drop out of the reckoning for Olympic quotas: Women's Double Sculls Men's Single Sculls Women's Single Sculls

Rowing World Championship With Para-Rowing action complete on Day 4 of World Champs, 8 more boats have booked their tickets to Paris 2023 - 4 in PR1 W1x and 4 in PR2 Mix2x PR1 Men's Single Sculls PR1 Women's Single Sculls PR2 Mixed Double Sculls PR3 Mixed Double Sculls PR3 Mixed Coxed Four Quotas

Nielsen's Gracenote Virtual Medal Table - August 2023 Gracenote have released their updated VMT for August: NOC Gold Silver Bronze Total Change Since July 35 44 47 126 Down 2 medals overall with 8 less golds 31 20 24 75 Up 7 medals overall with 5 more golds 31 16 11 58 Down 5 medals overall with 1 less gold 18 24 23 65 Up 3 medals overall with 3 extra golds 16 18 15 49 Up 7 medals overall with 4 more golds 14 18 16 48 Up 3 medals overall with 6 less golds 14 10 14 38 Down 3 medals overall with 1 more gold 12 15 28 55 1 more medal overall - no change in gold, 6 less silver and 7 more bronze 10 4 9 23 Down 1 medal overall with 1 more gold 9 12 11 32 3 less medals overall with 1 less gold

A lot of Olympic dreams are over - for now at least - after today's repechages Women's Pair & " Neutral" (NB the Croatian Pair had to withdraw due to illness) Lightweight Women's Double Sculls Women's Four Men's Four Men's Quadruple Sculls Women's Quadruple Sculls

Rowing World Championship 6 new quotas awarded on day 3 of the World Champs - 2 in PR1 W1x, 2 in PR2 Mix2x and 2 in PR3 Mix4+ PR1 Men's Single Sculls PR1 Women's Single Sculls PR2 Mixed Double Sculls PR3 Mixed Double Sculls PR3 Mixed Coxed Four Quotas

It's the Russian "neutral" that is out as opposed to the Belarusian "neutral"

Quick round up of some of the main road races which concluded over the weekend. Men's Events Maryland Cycling Classic 1.) Mattias Jensen 2.) Neilson Powless 3.) Hugo Houle Bretagne Classic - Ouest-France 1.) Valentin Madouas 2.) Mathieu Burgaudeau 3.) Felix Grosschartner Women's Events Tour de l'Avenir Femmes 1.) Shirin Van Anrooij 2.) Anna Shackley 3.) Gaia Realini Classic Lorient Agglomeration - Trophee Ceratizit 1.) Mischa Bredewold 2.) Marta Lach 3.) Sofia Bertizzolo

It was a tough repechage but they haven't looked at their best this week and when Australia made their move in the final quarter, they just had no response. There are 2 more quotas available at next year's final regatta but unless something dramatically shifts over the winter, can't see GB qualifying. They do have a pretty strong under 23 sculler - Miles Devereux (who is in Serbia and should have been allowed to compete in the single sculls) - who could come into the crew.

Rowing World Championship PR3 Mixed Coxed Four Quotas

With Repechages complete for Men's Pair, Men's Lightweight Double Sculls and Men's Double Sculls, more crews are out of contention for Olympic Quotas: Men's Pair Men's Lightweight Double Sculls Men's Double Sculls

With the repechage for the Single Sculls complete, the first tranche of nations have dropped out of contention for Olympic Quotas: Men's Single Sculls Women's Single Sculls

Think it is likely you'll still end up with 3-4 quotas - you've got 1 through the world ranking but Iran is one of the few nations who are also in the mix for the Grand Slam Champions Series and you have the Continental Qualifiers so overall not a bad position to be in.

Cunningham has probably had the strongest summer of all the British fighters - with back to back victories at the European Games and the Rome Grand Prix. My back of a fag packet calculation suggest that his silver medal in Paris will see him move up into 4th place in the world ranking and will put him into an Olympic qualifying spot. If - and it is a big if - he can stay healthy over the winter, and gets a decent draw, he's going to be in the mix for a medal in Paris. Lauren Williams had a decent result this weekend compared to her recent performances and she came very close to getting through to quarter finals so I think she'll take a lot of positives away from the competition particularly if she feels she is back to full fitness. She's currently about 80 points shy of a quota spot so she has a pretty steep mountain to climb but it isn't impossible - a lot will come down to whether she is going to go chasing the points at the various G1 level events through the early autumn. If she does go to the lower-level tournaments, it's not inconceivable that it could all come down to her performance in the Grand Prix Final in Manchester - but unfortunately I think she is going to come up short and miss out on Paris. Not sure what the story is with Bianca Cook this summer - think she has been nursing an injury and hasn't competed since the European Games. Her inactivity has seen her drop to world number 3 whereas McGowan has quietly been going about business and racking up the wins with bronze at Rome Grand Prix and now silver in Paris. If the selectors were meeting this month, I think the nod would go to McGowan.

Paris Grand Prix Results - Day 3 Men's +80Kg Gold: Cheick Sallah Cisse Silver: Caden Cunningham Bronze: Carlos Sansores & Pasko Bozic Women's +67Kg Gold: Althea Laurin Silver: Rebecca McGowan Bronze: Dabin Lee & Sude Yaren Uzuncavdar

BMX European Cup Round 12 Men's Elite Gold - Eddy Clerte Silver - Mauricio Ignacio Molina Bronze - Mathias Ragot Richard Women's Elite Gold - Bethany Shriever Silver - Zoe Claessens Bronze - Merel Smulders

would be guaranteed quotas for both the men's single sculls and the women's single sculls but these would only come into play if France were unable to qualify any boats through World Champs or the other qualifying regattas. Given strong likelihood that France will qualify a handful of boats, the quotas for single sculls will be reallocated to the final qualifying regatta.

Paris Grand Prix Results - Day 2 Men's 68Kg Gold: Ulugbek Rashitov Silver: Edival Pontes Bronze: Zaid Alhalawani & Marko Golubic Men's 80Kg Gold: Mehran Barkhordari Silver: Apostolos Telikostoglou Bronze: Carl Alan Nickolas & Muhammed Emin Yildiz Women's 67Kg Gold: Zhang Mengyu Silver: Song Jie Bronze: Hyo Rim Hong & Magda Wiet Henin

Why the big difference between the points total - the leader in 1 event has over 20 points but the leader in the other has only 5?

BMX European Cup Round 11 Men's Elite Gold - Ruben Gommers Silver - Eddy Clerte Bronze - Mauricio Ignacio Molina Women's Elite Gold - Zoe Claessens Silver - Bethany Shriever Bronze - Laura Smulders

You seem very bullish on Irish prospects - looks like you expect all of the Irish boats to qualify except for both of the Fours. I am intrigued how you have assessed the form for those crews which have not raced this season across the World Cup or European champs? In the women's pair for example you have the Irish boat finishing in 4th but they haven't raced together this season and the two previous Irish boats that have been fielded recorded a 6th in World Cup II and 7th at Euro Champs.

That will be Egypt's second quota on the men's side and first on the women's so there wont be any need to reallocate to the Olympic Ranking List.

It is going to be interesting to see how the crews adapt to the shorter course - so many of them use the 3rd 500 to establish themselves in the race.

Paris Grand Prix Results - Day 1 Women's 49Kg Gold: Merve Dincel Silver: Adriana Cerezo Iglesias Bronze: Wang Xialou & Mobina Nematzadeh Women's 57Kg Gold: Jade Jones Silver: Luo Zongshi Bronze: Hatice Kubra Ilgun & Aaliyah Powell Men's 58Kg Gold: Mahdi Hajimousaei Silver: Abolfazl Zandi Bronze: Bailey Lewis & Mohamed Khalil Jendoubi Good signs for Team as it looks like Jade Jones has rediscovered her mojo - that's her third tournament win in a row following victories at the European Games and Rome Grand Prix.

Think I read somewhere that the course for LA2028 is only going to be 1500m