Rafa Maciel

It can't be any worse than the water they swam in at Sunderland WTCS

Paris Test Event 1.) Beth Potter 2.) Cassandre Beaugrand 3.) Laura Lindemann Beth Potter now needs a podium finish at the WTCS Championship Final at Pontevedra to confirm her place on Team GB Beaugrand also met the first criteria for selection to French team - I think she now needs a top 6 at Olympic distance WTCS event next year to confirm her spot on the team. Laura Lindemann and Nina Eim should both be selected for German team given they both achieved top 8 finish.

Can't get my head around some of the latest ranking points totals from UCI. Was there an issue with the Chinese men's team pursuit at the world champs? I thought they had finished 10th so would get 1350 points but UCI don't seem to have included in their total. In the latest ranking, UCI have China dropping 3 places to 14th and still have GBR in an Olympic qualifying position but I think China should be in 10th with GB in 11th.

I think the single handed dinghy events - ILCA6 & ILCA 7 - are essentially entry level boats which allows smaller nations to take part. In that regard they are similar to the single sculls event in rowing.

All of them are Olympic classes

The test event is not a direct quota event - so no new quotas will be awarded - but a lot of the nations are using it as a team selection event.

Whatever happened to that German rider?

GB are probably heading for a doubling of their representation across the Mountain bike and BMX disciplines but despite this, it could still see them coming away with less medals in these events than they won in Tokyo. Off the top of my head I think GB are defending 3 gold, a silver and a bronze - Pidcock and Schriever have good chance to defend their titles but Worthington has struggled for form since Tokyo. Kye Whyte will be up against a formidable French team on home soil but if he can make the final could have medal chance. Finally, Reilly and/or Brookes will look to figure in the men's freestyle but Jeanjean will look to use home advantage.

I'll be interested to see who GB Cycling are going to announce as the replacement for McCulloch given all she has done for the women's sprint team. It's not beyond the realms of possibility that Finucane can take 3 medals next year if she can carry this form through to next year. On Laura Kenny, they don't expect her to feature at Paris but could be back in the squad by the time the next World Champs comes round.

So compared to Tokyo, have pretty much held on to their form with 6 gold although they are down 2 medals overall. They'll also know that there are another couple of targets on the track that they will be aiming for - including men's pursuit, women's keirin and women's omnium. On the road, I wouldn't be surprised to see GB focusing on the time trial events given the performances of Tarling and Henderson. For both the BMX disciplines and Mountain bike, GB very much in the medal hunt, but it is going to be difficult for them to do much better than they did in Glasgow. Perhaps as expected heading into Paris, there's been a big movement for against their Tokyo results where they only took 2 bronze medals. Like GB, they are perhaps unlikely to be able to do much more across the BMX and mountain bike disciplines, but I would think they would like to get some better results across the track events.

According to the USATF website, the squad for 200m is Lyles, Knighton, Bednarek and Lindsey. So assume that Kerley has been entered as a reserve but won't take to the start line unless one of the other 4 drop out. I think USA have done this in a couple of events.

There would be no reallocation of quotas unless the quota was to be rejected by your NOC - in which case Vas would only be able to enter 1 event. The quotas are awarded to the NOC rather than specific athletes so how the quota is filled is largely an issue to be determined by the NOC. By having the same athlete compete in 2 disciplines, it wouldn't have any impact on the overall size of the field for either event, although it would help cycling to ensure it stayed within the overall number of athletes allocated by IOC. According to the qualification document for Mountain Biking, providing you have earned a quota for mountain biking, there is no restriction on cyclists who are qualified from other disciplines taking part: This same provision applies across all cycling disciplines with the exception of BMX Freestyle, which specifically prohibits cyclists from other disciplines taking part.

I fear that I may have developed an unhealthy obsession with cycling ranking lists over the course of the last 2 weeks, but if the MTB qualification were to end as of the completion of world champs, I think the quotas on the men's side would be: Olympic Ranking Quotas (27): 2x 1 x Continental Quotas (3) Africa: TBC - Won by South Africa but reallocated to America: Asia: TBC - Possibly based on 2022 Asian Champs 2023 World Championship Quotas: All of the quotas from the World Champs are subject to reallocation 2023 Elite Race: & 2023 Under-23 Race: & Reallocation of Host Quota: Would go to next nation in Olympic Ranking: So, if I have got this ride (not guaranteed at this time of night), but Matthieu van der Poel could line up on the MTB start line in Paris by virtue of the performance of the Dutch under 23 squad. As for Sagan, unfortunately the Slovakian team didn't really achieve much at the world champs so they will stay ranked around 30th and about 600 points outside of qualifying position. His best prospect of qualifying was likely to have been through reallocation of quotas in the elite race but it looks like he fell well short of what was required.

Men's Boulder/Lead Quotas: Jakob Schubert Colin Duffy Tomoa Narasaki

I do feel a little bit sorry for Lea Siegl. They had a really strong dressage score and were going fine cross country until a pretty innocuous ditch just 2 fences from home

Hmmm - so if Canter is in 1st place and King is in 3rd, who is 2nd?

Class round by Roz Canter - only rider inside of the optimum time and she'll take a 2 fence cushion into the final day.

Bordone out

Looks like Blom-Hulsman is struggling a bit for - in fact she's retired. Quota is very much up for grabs for Italy now

Michael Jung!

Nah - you've got an experienced rider to come in Bordone. She just needs to have a steady ride and make sure she completes the course.

Looks like fence 18 is the big danger point - already had 3 refusals and a faller there.

The fact that there are only 2 teams competing here is is one of the reasons why I am not a huge fan of some of the continental qualifiers for Oceania - it is generally the least competitive of the continents and invariably just benefits Australia or New Zealand.

Whilst I am very pleased with an unexpected bronze in the time trial for Josh Tarling, part of me is a bit disappointed with the result for Geraint Thomas. Given he elected to focus on this race ahead of the road race, and he was the only one of our ranking riders to take part, I would have liked him to be higher up the rankings to maximise the ranking points in order to secure the full team of 4 for Paris. The silver lining is that Tarling will pretty much double his ranking points and will become the 10th ranked GB rider, slipping in behind Fred Wright. If Tarling has a decent ride in next week's BEMER cyclassic and is selected for the European Championship time trial, he could move ahead of both Hugh Carthy and Max Poole to become GB's 7th ranked rider. Overall, the mens squad will be leaving the World Championships without really adding to their ranking points total. The only saving grace is that their immediate competition for the top 5 position haven't been able to capitalise on the fact that our biggest names were pretty much AWOL this week.

Compared to Tokyo, and miss out on the second quota whilst and gain an extra spot. Technically also drop a quota but they didn't use it in Tokyo so there is no difference for them.