Rafa Maciel

Charlotte Worthington having another pretty mediocre competition - 10th place in the final. At least she managed a respectable score this time out though.

Wont be confirmed until after tomorrow's final, but looks like McArthur has done enough to stay in top-10 and take Paris quota. Although he doesn't make it to the final, there's only a handful of lower ranked climbers who could overtake him and they would need a monster performance in the final for them to get enough points to do it.

Yes - first version in August '22, then revised in January '23 and then again in Febuary this year.

Not sure - the previous version I had downloaded was from Jan-23. The current qualification document is dated Feb-24 but I'm not sure if there were any versions published between those dates.

Looks like Thompson-Smith will miss out on a direct quota - she needed to overtake Kim and Krampl to get into the top 10 (excluding duplicates). She should overtake Kim but will finish behind Krampl. I think she's on track to finish in 11th place in the rankings so could be in line for the host quota reallocation.

feck!

Only potential fly in the ointment is the fact that Jones was tied with Logan Martin - but he has been classified ahead of him in the final ranking document so assume that if we are right in the interpretation of the qualifying document Jones should get the reallocation.

I'm not so sure on that. Yes he finished in 7th place in the final OQS rankings so in theory he misses out but..... Jeanjean qualified through OQS and that frees up the Host Quota. Because Jeanjean obtained his quota via OQS, the host quota is reallocated to the next best rider at the OQS which would be Jones.

Good start for Jones and Hessey in qualifying. At the half way point, they are sitting on top of the table and should both make it through to the final. Jones pretty much matched his qualifying score from Shanghai with 83.32 whilst Hessey was down a little at 82.01 (compared to 87.29 in Shanghai)

The BMX Freestyle qualification process was always one of the worst structured documents but it's pretty disappointing that they are allowed to change the qualification pathways when the qualifying process has already kicked off.

Didn't they change the wording of the qualifying document earlier this year so that the 2023 World Champ quotas are reallocated to NOCs that haven't already qualified? That would suggest that assuming Worthington qualifies, then Pardoe wouldn't be eligible for quota reallocation?

Have trade one rainy isle for another - just the rain in is warmer

I've just moved abroad so not had much chance to look at this 2nd OQS - in fact, I actually forgot it started this week It's probably a little early for the commentators to be predicting who could take the quotas - they might feel a bit braver in the lead round of the semi-final. But my thoughts for GB, starting with the strongest: Erin McNiece: Had a great event in Shanghai but it looks like she's had a shaky start in the boulder rounds in Budapest. She needs to put in a solid lead round tomorrow to get into the semi finals. If she misses out on the semis, then that's her chances for Paris gone. Hopefully today was just a blip. If she can get into the final, then she should be safely in a qualifying spot. She could potentially also afford to bow in the semi finals if she can finish in the top 10-12, but it would depend on the results of others. The good thing for her is that there are some nations who have 2 athletes in the mix for a single quota for their nation e.g USA, JPN, FRA so it is possible that a top 14 position overall would still be enough for a quota Hamish McArthur: Like McNiece, he had a great event in Shanghai although he may be disappointed that he didn't finish a little higher than 7th. If he can get to the final then he too should be safe for a quota. Unlike the women's event, there less nations who already have qualifiers so it's likely he will need a top 10 finish to guarantee the spot. Molly Thompson-Smith: She is currently in 11th place in the race for a quota so she could still sneak into a quota spot. Like McNiece, she needs to get through tomorrow's Lead round and get into the semi-finals. Then it becomes a case of trying to finish ahead of the likes of Kim Jain and Mia Krampl. Will try to take a look at the results in more detail tomorrow though.

Oh man, I see our pound-shop Nostradamus is still spraying forth predictions of doom and despair.

It is disappointing - but not disastrous for the team. Admittedly the team pursuit chances probably get downgraded to silver at best and it is difficult to see a medal in omnium but it could work in GB's favour for madison as good chance for Evans and Barker to go a bit under the radar without being marked in the way that a pairing with Archibald would be. Evans and Barker are world champs so have every chance of being in the mix for a medal and it could well be gold.

Bargeron will be eligible to compete in both the 10m and 3x50m (as McIntosh is on the women's side) - but GB wouldn't be able to nominate both Bale and Bargeron as we only secured 1 athlete quota.

Anne Keothavong was pretty certain that Boulter and Watson would get in as a doubles pairing when she was discussing the squad at the French Open but I struggle to see the second pairing getting in though.

As a general rule I don't trust Wikipedia, but based on their list, Schmiedlova is the last auto qualifier in 80th place. Harriet Dart is the best placed Brit ranked 92nd - strip out the nations who already have full squads and I think she would be something like 6th reserve - so not impossible for her to sneak in.

Not sure if it's been mentioned elsewhere but Angharad Evans has repaid the selectors faith as she set new national record at a meet in London at the end of May - would have thought that it would warrant a mention on the GB Aquatics site but evidently not.

Seeing a lot of online chatter that BBC isn't going to be showing the European Champs next week. This seems strange given we've had 2 Diamond League events since the Daily Mail article and on both occasions, the announcer has said the BBC will be covering and the programme pages are up on the website.

Samuel Dickinson likely to have done enough to take the second spot in the men's team after winning the 'GB selection race' at the European Triathlon Cup in Kielce. In a nice touch, they even put on a live stream of the race so could see he finished pretty strongly and was able to sprint away in the last couple of hundred metres. Brownlee put in a decent showing and was among the first group out of the water and led on the bike leg. His running was better than I've seen in a while and whilst he was able to respond to a couple of attacks, when Dickinson went to the front int he final sprint, he didn't have the legs to match the speed.

Looks like GB will only have 1 rider int he men's BMX racing event after disappointing results at Euros - they needed 215 points to overtake USA but it looks like they will only come away with 160 points.

I agree - Bach doesn't want his legacy to be one where he banned a nation from competing so he has been more than happy to perform whatever linguistic gymnastics were required to be able to look both ways at once and say that he took a stand against RUS/BLR but didn't allow politics to take over from sport. But I kind of disagree that the decision is ultimately his alone - some federations are heavily dependent on Russian benefactors to keep their sports financially viable, so were more keen than others to allow RUS/BLR to be readmitted.

I don't think the change in the name is all that relevant - it just means that each athlete application is considered on an individual basis based on the merits of their claim to be neutral.

Under the letter of the regulations, the answer would have to be yes. It would be a completely illogical approach - and that is probably why the ICF and World Rowing elected to limit AIN participation to crews of 1 or 2 athletes - but allowing RUS/BLR to field a crew of 4 would be entirely compatible with their own regulations. Totally agree with your point that the ICF have failed to effectively communicate on this issue. The regulations should have been updated to include specific reference to RUS/BLR participation. This links back to my original point - the IOC did not and have not tried to define team events. It has been clear from the start that the IOC wanted Russian/Belorussian athletes to compete in Paris, but they didn't want to impose sweeping rules that would infringe the autonomy of the international federations. They left the ultimate decisions on RUS/BLR participation to the federations. With regards to the ISSF, their regulations define team events in 2 ways - the first comprising events where ranking is established on the performance of 3 athletes (same sex events) and the second covering mixed team events which have one man and one woman, both from the same country.