Rafa Maciel

Samrej was the first round of Australian open - Bonzi beat him at Wimbledon in 4 so you could argue that he has improved since then given he somehow managed to drag it to 5 sets

A lot of positives from this week albeit with a couple of disappointments. There were quite a few events where there was no GB representative - particularly in the longer freestyle distances.

So, Emily Lewis potentially emerges as the new hope for sprint canoe with her bronze medal in the K1 200m. Unfortunately, it's not an Olympic class. Emma Russell failed to make it out of the heats in the 500m event. On the upside, if these results were replicated in 2027, it is likely that s 9th place finish would be enough to qualify a boat for the women's K4 500m.

Think this was the 100m Free - not 800m

We haven't really looked at our prospects in squash yet despite it offering decent medal chances for GB. On the men's side we currently have 2 men inside the world's top 5: Joel Makin: Currently World Number 4. Makin has competed in 6 PSA Tour Events over the last 6 months. His biggest result was winning the World Tour Finals in June. Beyond that, he has reached 4 semi-finals and a quarter-final. He missed the World Championships in May. Marwan ElShorbagy: Currently World Number 5. Has competed in Tour Events over the last 6 months with his best result coming in April when he won the World Tour Bronze Event 'Squash on Fire Open' in Washington. He was also runner-up at the New Zealand Open in March. With 2 further semi-finals and 2 quarter-finals, as well as being part of the winning English Team at May's European Team Championship, he has a habit of reaching the latter stages of tournaments. Mohamed ElShorbagy: Currently World Number 7. 7 Tour Events in the last 6 months with his best result winning the title at the World Tour Bronze Canadian Open in February. He's reached a semi-final and three quarter-finals - including at the World Championships in May. He was also part of England's winning team at the European Team Championships. Greg Lobban: Currently World Number 20. Has won two titles in the last 6 months - albeit at a lower level than the main PSA Tour. (Irish Open and Scottish Nationals). He's also made a couple of finals but equally has a couple of early losses including losing in the first round of the World Championships. He helped Scotland to 5th place at the European Team Championships. As there is only 16 spots in the draw in LA, I assume they'll use the world ranking as the qualification pathway but I would be surprised if they limited quotas to 1 per NOC so good chance that GB could qualify 2 men.

Summary of results from this morning: Theodora Taylor and Skye Carter both qualified for the semi-finals of the 100m Freestyle - Taylor was second fastest qualifier whilst Carter progressed in 16th. Dean Fearn was the 3rd fastest qualifier for the 100m Butterfly semi-finals. Edie Price qualified in 7th place for final of 200m Butterfly. qualified in 4th place for final of 4x100m mixed medley relay. Additional action to look forward to this afternoon: Amelie Blocksidge goes in the fastest heat of the 800m Theodora Taylor goes in the final of 50m Breast Stroke. She was the 6th fastest qualifier - about 0.2 outside of medal. Filip Nowacki and Max Morgan both have medal chances in the final of the 100m Breast Stroke

Day 2 of qualifying got a bit better in the afternoon/evening with victories for Hariet Dart, Fran Jones and Oliver Crawford. Heather Watson failed to progress after a spirited effort - have a feeling that we are probably approaching her final season on the tour.

Of course will make finals........just not necessarily the A finals Typically Deborah Kerr is seen as the strongest in the squad - in 2023 she and Emma Russell made the A final of the W K2 500m where they finished 9th so missed out on Olympic qualification (top 6). This time it looks like Kerr has a different partner. The W K4 500m is also in with a chance of getting through to the A Final. In 2023 they finished 2nd in the B Final for 11th overall and missed Olympic qualification by just 1 place.

not having a great start to the second day at US Open Qualifying. After wins yesterday for Jodie Burrage, Billy Harris and Jay Clarke, today we've seen Jan Choinski and George Loffhagen go out in straight sets whilst Jack Pinnington Jones was the better player for most of his match but fell short in the deciding set tie-break.

The men's 4x100m Freestyle relay was a bit of a disappointment - the team were the fastest qualifiers from the heat but could only manage 5th in the final. I think they were the only team to swam slower in the final than they did in the heats.

New thread ahead of this week's Sprint World Championships in Milan.

Nowacki and Morgan both safely through to the final of the 100 Breaststroke - as the fastest and 4th fastest qualifiers. Possibility of double medal.

Amalie Smith follows up her gold at Europeans with Silver at the Worlds in 400 IM. A great start to the meet.

And the week goes from bad to worse with the women's team also crashing out - think that is only the 2nd time in the last 30 years that they have failed to progress to the semis. Let's hope they are just having a quiet post Olympic year because on current form there is distinct possibility that neither team would qualify for Los Angeles

have crashed out of European Championships after last second goal by France who take the tie 3-2. This is just the 3rd time that England have failed to progress to the semi finals in the last 20 years.

TBH - no idea. There are 66 quotas across 6 teams so assume Olympics are using the full format.

Aren't they using a different format of the game for the Olympics?

Indicative Olympic Qualifying Time for LA: The OQT is based on the 14th place time from the heats in Paris with the OCT applying additional 0.5%. In most cases (green) the qualifying times should be slower than Paris albeit probably not by much but there are a couple of events on the women's side where the entry standards could be considerably slower.

If anyone wants to watch the v match this afternoon, it is being streamed on Channel 4 Sport YouTube

In the battle of the Home Nations, women defeat 3-0 in the first pool match at the EuroHockey Championships. That's the easy job done - gets more difficult from here as they take on tomorrow before finishing their pool matches against on Wednesday.

Pool B: 8th Aug: 5 - 0 3 - 2 9th Aug: 5 - 3 10th Aug: 1 - 1 12th Aug: P - P P - P Pool A: 9th Aug: 10 - 1 3 - 0 10th Aug: 2 - 4 10 - 0 12th Aug: P - P P - P

have made strong start to their 2025 EuroHockey Championship with a 5-0 win over On Sunday they will take on before facing on Monday in the remaining pool games. Am expecting the German match to be close - in June they played twice. Germany won both - the first in a Shootout after a 2-2 draw whilst the second match Germany won 3-2.

For anyone who is interested, I've mapped out what I think could be likely qualification pathways across the LA28 sports - except for Boxing because not sure who will be managing the qualifying procedure, weightlifting because the weight classes aren't established yet, and wrestling because I really don't care about it. 2028 Los Angeles Qualification Timeline.xlsx

After their 9th place finish at the European Championships, the Bello brothers travel to Montreal for the Elite16 event next week. It'll be v as they first play Holting Nilsson / E Andersson on Thursday before facing Ahman / Hellvig on Friday. With Ahman/Hellvig currently ranked number 2 in the world, their first match is the one that will determine if they get through to the knock out matches. Nilsson/Andersson are ranked 9th in the world - 2 places higher than the British pairing.

Looks like Alex Yee will return to competition at the WTCS event in the French Riviera at the end of this month. He will be joined by Connor Bentley, Hugo Milner and Ben Dijkstra. On the women's side, Beth Potter is on the start list along with Sian Rainsley, Olivia Mathias and Jess Fullagar.