Rafa Maciel

Yes I'm sure - the only rider who used the new bike was Charlie Tanfield in the men's pursuit (and we all know how that ended). Everyone else is on the old bike. As far as I am aware, no nation is solely using their new kit - everyone is doing the bare minimum to register it and allow it to be used in Paris

It's the same bike as she rode at the Europeans Would also point out that she was silver medalist at European Junior level in 2019 and won bronze at the Junior worlds in the same year. Not sure how that doesn't register as "remotely impressive"

Yeongdo World Cup Men 1.) Takumi Hojo 2.) Max Stapley 3.) Valentin Wernz This is Stapley's best result and sees him break the top 100 in the Olympic ranking. Women 1.) Annika Koch 2.) Romana Gajdosova 3.) Erica Hawley

Sea-level WR for Emma Finucane in flying lap qualification for women's sprint

The Omnium has been part of the world schedule since about 2009/2010 - probably in preparation for its introduction to the Olympics in 2012. At Olympic level, the Omnium came in to replace both the individual pursuit and the points race in 2012 and balances the schedule between sprint and endurance events. The current format of the omnium is a bit samey - the introduction of the tempo race in place of the individual pursuit was a mistake in my opinion - but as with many of the sports we've seen so far this summer, there is a major problem with how the scoring is presented, particularly in the points race.

Yeah - the scoring of this race seems to be a mess. They seem to be awarding lap gains left, right and centre. In the last 5 runnings of this event, there were no more than 2 laps gained and yet here, they are saying some riders have gained 6 laps.

Afraid so - they needed to balance out the men and women's quotas so the number of men's places drop from 130 to 90 whilst the women will increase from 67 to 90. Additionally, only 5 teams rather than 6 will have the maximum number of riders.

Not 100% sure by any stretch - as I said, I've not had time to run the numbers for the rest of the qualifying window - but France currently have a 3000 point advantage over both Italy and Netherlands and that's not going to be easy to overcome. Van Der Poel winning today will pull in 900 points for Netherlands but their riders are defending a fair chunk of points in the last quarter of the qualifying window.

Looking at the UCI calendar, I think the main multi-stage events to take place within the qualifying period are: UCI World Tour 23 Aug: Renewi Tour (Formerly known as Tour of Benelux) 26 Aug: Vuelta Espana 12 Oct: Tour of Guangxi ProSeries 15 Aug: Tour of Denmark 15 Aug: Vuelta a Burgos 17 Aug: Arctic Race of Norway 23 Aug: Deutschland Tour 3 Sep: Tour of Britain 14 Sep: Tour of Taihu Lake 20 Sep: Tour of Luxembourg 20 Sep: Tour de Langkawi 5 Oct: Tour of Hainan

I haven't run the full projection for Q3 yet, but at the moment, I think Belgium and Denmark are pretty much guaranteed a full team of 4. France and Great Britain should also be OK for full team. The last full team probably going to come down to a fight between Spain and Slovenia.

Personally I go with the UCI version purely because it is the easiest one to work with and is ultimately going to be the source used to allocate quotas and there aren't that many big events left over the next 8-10 weeks or so that are going to have big impact on the ranking.

The Procycling ranking is based only on performances within the qualifying period whereas the UCI ranking is based on 12 month rolling period of a nation's top 8 riders. In theory they should come together and show the same ranking by the time the qualifying period ends in October.

Women's Team Pursuit Olympic Ranking Barring any major disasters/surprises next year, I think the 10 Olympic quotas are pretty much set - not impossible for Poland or China to sneak in ahead of Japan, but it is going to be difficult for them to overcome a 500 point deficit.

Could be wrong, but have a feeling that in today's women's pursuit finals we saw a change in tactic from . Katy Archibald is undoubtedly the strongest cyclist in the squad, but in previous competitions she's gone out so hard in the latter parts of the races that the rest of the squad have struggled to keep up and they end finishing quite fragmented. In today's final, she put a pig push in in the middle of the ride to get GB ahead of the kiwis and then she was the rider to drop out and it ended up with a more solid ride for the squad as a whole. Can't recall any other instances where she has been the rider to drop out.

Pretty disappointing team lining up for in tomorrow's men's road race - none of our top riders taking part so we are likely to lose ground to Spain and Slovenia in the race for all important top 5 ranking to secure full team for Paris.

2023 Nations Cup series is finished - there are only 3 rounds. I don't think there are any more ranking events for track cycling in 2023.

look to be pretty safe in 3 of the team events - Men's and Women's Team Pursuits and Men's Team Sprint. For Women's Team Sprint, I have them in 9th place - so just outside of the qualifying spots. They have a deficit of 71 points to make up on New Zealand in 8th and 90 points on 7th placed Canada. If all the teams replicate their 2023 Nations Cup/Continental Champs performances in 2024, France should comfortably overtake New Zealand. Key thing for France will be Euro Champs - ideally, they really need to make sure that they outscore Poland.

From what I can see, the discard score from the 2023 Nations Cup series has already been deducted. The discard for 2024 will take effect after the third Nations Cup which I think is in Milton, Canada in April next year.

That's right - but teams will only count their two best results from the Nations Cup.

Men's Team Pursuit Olympic Ranking

There are 4 more ranking events - 3 Nations Cups, of which each nation will count their top 2 results; and 1 Continental Championship. There are no host quotas in track cycling.

BMX Freestyle is probably the worst qualification process for Paris 2024. The short answer is probably yes they could but you wont actually know until after the completion of next year's OQS. The quotas from the world champs are the lowest priority and can be used to ensure continental representation so the chances are that the people who finish on the podium, wont actually be the ones who are awarded the quotas

Hungary Masters 2023 - a non-discard ranking event for Paris '24 qualification - Day 1 Results Men's -60Kg Gold: Ryuju Nagayama Silver: Ariunbold Enkhtaivan Bronze: Naohisa Takato / Kim Won Jin Men's -66Kg Gold: Ryoma Tanaka Silver: Denis Vieru Bronze: Narmandakh Bayanmunkh / An Baul Women's -48Kg Gold: Wakana Koga Silver: Maria Celia Laborde Bronze: Assunta Scutto / Baasankhuu Bavuudorj Women's -52Kg Gold: Amandine Buchard Silver: Distria Krasniqi Bronze: Diyora Keldiyorova / Gefen Primo Women's -57Kg Gold: Jessica Klimkait Silver: Sarah Leonie Cysique Bronze: Daria Bilodid / Haruka Funakubo

Looking at the results from these champs, Bello/Bello seem to have finally found some decent form this season Despite being pretty distinctly average in the Edmonton Challenger last month they have just managed to put out the world number 4 pairing - Brouwer/Meeuwsen.

2023 CEV Beach Volleyball Championships Quarter Finals Ahman/Hellvig v Ehlers/Wickler Bello/Bello v Popv/Reznik Immers/Van de Velde v Cottafava / Nicolai Mol / Sorum v Luini / de Groot