Rafa Maciel

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

Yeah - isn't there a rule that if you are entered into an event you have to start that event in order to be allowed to start in another event? I seem to recall there used to be a lot of track athletes who were down to double up and would line up for their first event but then pull up after the first couple of laps.

Exactly - I think Italy took advantage of the rule in Tokyo with Ganna competing in both time trial and team pursuit. Obviously it only really works if you have qualified track athletes in one of the endurance events - can't see many track sprinters fancying the prospect of 158km road race though. It wouldn't surprise me if GB did something similar in Paris - whilst I think Tarling is a cert for the time trial, I could see him being subbed out of the road race in favour of one of the team pursuiters (although selectors might not want to jeopardise potential track medals)

In theory you could - but if you've only earned 1 quota for road cycling, then you are stuck. But under the terms of the qualification document, any athlete who is entered into another cycling discipline would be eligible to be entered into the road cycling events - so if you had track cyclists qualified, then you could sub one in.

I did - and there is nothing there from the last week. Her score moved to 359 in the wk/bg 26-Sep off the back of European champs, but I don't think she has raced since then. Initially thought it was due to sanctions which may have dropped off at the start of new ranking season, but I checked Pidcock's ranking and his sanctions are still there, so I am at a loss as to how to explain the difference in ranking points.

I am going to admit - I was not expecting to add close to 20% to their total in the final week of racing but I am a bit confused because Dominika Wlodarczyk went from 359 points to 395 without seeming to have raced.

I think it is just a classic case of financial mismanagement where the organisation is run by people who may understand the sport, but do not have the necessary skills and experience in budget control, project management, contract negotiation and strategic planning. Ed Warner penned a good article on the issue earlier in the year: UK Athletics' demise is a scandalous situation - Ed Warner (cityam.com) Going through UK Athletics financial statements, a big part of their failure has to be their handling of broadcasting rights. They are showing no income coming in from broadcasting rights in 2022 whereas in 2021, that accounted for over 1mln GBP and in the years before that, they were raking in around 3mln GBP a year from broadcasting. Likewise, the ticket sales have plummeted through the floor - just 300,000 in 2022 compared to 1.3mln in 2020 and 3mln in 2019.

UK Athletics' death spiral continues: Stephen Maguire: UK Athletics technical director leaves with immediate effect - BBC Sport Depending on which source you take, Maguire leaving was either by mutual agreement or as seems more likely, he was sacked after he challenged Jack Buckner on the chronic mismanagement of the federation's finances as he prepared for the final run in to Paris and the announcement of the 23/24 athlete funding settlement which is due in early November. I had a feeling that the strong World Championship results were papering over the cracks in the management of the sport in the UK, but hadn't expected the s**t to hit the fan in this way as soon as this. Interestingly, we're already seeing some of the big-name athletes speaking out against the move - something we didn't see when there were complaints around the selection policy going into Budapest. If the top British athletes collectively express no confidence in the management of UK Athletics, it would be difficult to see how Buckner would be able to hold on to his position.

I perhaps should explain a little more as I know there are a lot of users who are big fans of the Pro Cycling Stats data. The reason I say it is wrong on the women's side is because the PCS bases its ranking on the performance of the top 8 riders per nationality: Whilst this is correct for the men's rankings, for the women's rankings, the UCI only counts the points of the top 5 riders per country: So basically, PCS is consistently reporting higher ranking totals for each nation than we will see when using the official UCI rankings. Often that doesn't make a huge amount of difference, but in this instance it is giving misleading impression of where France will finish.