Rafa Maciel

Lauren Williams and Aaliyah Powell having one more roll of the dice as they attempt to qualify for Paris. Both are entered into the Qualifying Tournament for the Grand Slam Champions Series Final. They need to reach the quarter finals in order to progress to the Grand Slam Champions Series Final. Williams is the 6th seed and will face 27th seed Arina Sagayadachnaya in the round of 32. If she comes through that, she will probably face 11th seed Junhong Liu. Powell has been a bit unfortunate with her draw as she is up against 4th seed Cecilia Castro Burgos of in the round of 32.

Nielsen's Gracenote Virtual Medal Table - November 2023 Gracenote have released their updated VMT as at the end of November: NOC Gold Silver Bronze Total Change Since Last Release 37 45 44 126 Down 1 medal overall 35 25 18 78 Up 3 medals in total. 4 additional golds and 5 additional silvers offset by 6 fewer bronze medals 27 15 9 51 Down 2 silver medals. 17 24 25 66 Up 1 overall. Total silver increase to 24 whilst bronze total drops to 25. 16 9 12 37 Down 1 bronze medal. 15 17 18 50 Gain of 1 bronze medal. 15 13 30 58 Gains 2 medals overall. 13 14 22 49 Gains 1 medal overall. 10 13 15 38 Gains 1 medal overall - dropping a silver and picking up 2 bronze. 7 7 9 23 No change. No major movement in the predictions this month.

How does Bulgaria win a medal when they haven't qualified a team?

Now you've got me second guessing whether this is serious or just you being spicy :

Whilst Germany may be favourite to win the women's team sprint, they're are not going to win gold in the team pursuit - and are probably unlikely to make the podium. Their strongest team seems to be Brausse/Klein/Kroger/Sussemilch - that was the team that got them bronze at the Europeans this year and a bronze at the Nations Cup in Cairo - but bronze is the best they have achieved this year and I don't think they have ever finished ahead of GB's or Italy's top teams this season.

From what I've seen, the curlers are generally pretty happy to compete as Team GB at Olympics - it is the only time when they get any media coverage It doesn't hurt them that for a while, they were the only realistic chance of a winter Olympic medal so the BBC would be fawning over them. A more apt comparison is probably the reaction to the Scottish, Welsh and English rugby 7s teams being forced to merge to compete as Great Britain this year. I know a lot of people think that has essentially killed off the game in the home nations.

Sorry, but the assumption that Scotland are going to allow themselves to be steamrollered by England shows a fundamental lack of understanding of the dynamics of football within the UK - most Scottish players would happily sell their right kidney to beat England. At best, only 3 or 4 Scottish players would be considered for Team GB so most of them don't have an any skin in the game when it comes to Olympic qualification. England will beat Scotland because they are a better team - but Scotland wont go down without a fight and a 2-1 final score wouldn't surprise me so GB's best hope of keeping their Olympic qualification alive probably lies with the Belgians sneaking out a win against Netherlands.

So, whilst Scottish Curling will no doubt be celebrating the men's side, at some point they are going to have to wake up to the fact that there is something that is just not working on the women's side and if they want to be winning a medal in Milan-Cortina, then Rebecca Morrison may not be the skip they need to be putting forward. Morrison had 4 matches where she was scored less than 70% and seemed to consistently be the weakest player on the team. They also elected to rotate their alternate in on a one-on, one-off basis which I don't think any of the main curling nations do when their team is working well together. To be fair, the alternate - Sinclair - played great matches and scored over 90% is all 4 but they still elected to play Aitken when she was scoring in the 70% range. Then there is the issue of Jennifer Dodds. Personally, I think she is one of the strongest curlers within the Scottish squad, but as an outsider, I get the impression that she and Morrison don't get on. Unlike the majority of other teams where the skip and the third are constantly working together to build the end, there seemed to be hardly any interaction between Dodds and Morrison. It is almost as if Morrison has been told by Scottish Curling that Dodds is on the squad and is playing third whether she likes it or not.

Very true - and it has often worked in the favour of / teams.

Great result for in what was an excellent final that could have gone either way. The medal presentation was a bit bizarre though - a very strange rendition of Flower of Scotland where the piper was going so slowly that the crowd singing finished way before she did and ended up having to repeat the last couple of lines.

That's a bit of a shocker. were the strongest team all week - both collectively and individually across the round robin - so for them to go home empty handed is going to sting for a while.

I think I ran the numbers after the world champs and I don't think that GB's position is as bad as the performance director made out at the time. are currently 150 points behind and just over 500 points behind are pretty much guaranteed to take a top 2 finish in the Asian champs so will pick up at least an additional 810 points. will probably put out their strongest team in the Europeans in January and if they don't take top spot, should be able to pick up a top 3 position to get at least 720 points. Personally, I don't see making the medal matches in the Euros but I do expect them to finish within 5-8 - in line with their 2023 performance. When it comes to the Nations Cup, if can be in the medals in both Adelaide and Hong Kong, then they wont need to send their best team to the final event in Milton. recorded a 10th and 7th for the Nations Cups in 2023 whilst had 2 6th place finishes and if the 2023 results are replicated next year, GB would comfortably overtake both Belgium and China. My gut feeling at the moment is that will be able to finish ahead of both and and could end up being ranked either 7th or 8th in the final list. If I had to make a call now, I would say that will miss out on qualification.

There are 4 ranking events left taking place from Jan-Apr next year - Continental Championships (Points factored at 0.75) and three Nations Cups - Adelaide, Hong Kong & Milton (Points factored at 1.0) Teams will count their scores from the continental champs and their 2 best results from the nations cups. So each nations final ranking point total will comprise of: 2x Continental Champs 1x World Champs 2x Best Nations Cup 2023 2x Best Nations Cup 2024

Will be interesting to see what the production is like - the last couple of times they have shown curling, it has been like watching a high school media studies project.

So it looks like whoever has been updating the Wikipedia page got their calculations wrong on the women's side - Indonesia don't get a continental quota.

For the men's qualification, It shows picking up 2 quotas - they are coloured blue so that would be through the ranking list pathway, but the qualification document says you can only get 1 quota through the ranking list.

Sorry - you're right. I had misread the reference relating to Qualifying 2 as allowing the quotas to go to next highest ranked athlete when in fact it is referring to the handling of NOCs with 2 athletes in the final.

Yes

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.