Rafa Maciel

So, it turns out that you can't play softball in the wind and rain! This kind of begs 2 questions: 1.) How did manage to put together such a decent team and 2.) Why did they choose Ireland as the host for Group A. Only 1 match played today with beating 5-0 in a match that included an 8 hour rain delay and as a result, Australia will finish the group stage in 3rd place behind and . The remaining group matches have been cancelled as they were irrelevant to the final group positions and we move straight on to the playoff matches tomorrow. v with the winner booking ticket to next year's finals. The loser to play the winner of second playoff: v

Duet - Katie Shortman and Isabelle Thorpe score 226.9067 in the preliminaries of the women's artistic swimming duet -technical. This was enough to put them into 10th and qualified them to the final. For comparison, they scored 242.9967 at the European Games last month, so their performance has dropped back a fair bit - in fact they were probably the only European nation that underperformed compared to Poland and it meant that they were overtaken by , and When compared to their performance in 2022 when they qualified in 9th, the scoring has changed which makes direct comparison difficult, but they did qualify ahead of the

Ranjuo Tomblin scored 166.8601 to finish 6th in the prelim of the artistic swimming men's solo - technical. I'm assuming something went wrong with his routine as he had the second highest starting degree of difficulty at 27.8 but this was marked down to 15.2 and his execution score was only 84 - in comparison at the World Cup meet in Montpelier earlier this year, he scored 188 with a difficulty score of 23.05 and an execution of 121.2292.

Kate Shortman is the first of the Brits to take the plunge in the artistic swimming women's solo -technical, preliminaries. She scores 223.6033 to finish in 5th and comfortably qualify for the final. Defending champion Yukiko Inui topped the prelims with score of 273.27, ahead of Evangelina Platanioti on 252.24 and Vasiiliki Alexandri on 232.8367. In comparison, in 2022 Shortman scored 83.8324 (different scoring systems so not directly comparable) and finished the prelims in 7th, although it is worth noting that 2022 silver medalist Marta Fiedina is not in Fukuoka. There is a slim chance of a medal - Alexandri looked to be in some discomfort when she was waiting for her results but Shortman would need to nail her routine in the final.

Try: aquatics.eurovisionsports.tv You have to register but it is free. Not sure if it is geoblocked but it is working for UK.

Oh of course - am all in favour of being optimistic but there's a point when optimism turns to delusion and thinking that GBR will come out as winners of that match is way past that point.

Assume we might have a few things to celebrate (and a few to commiserate) over the next couple of weeks but before we get into that, does anyone know if there is any coverage of the events expected in the UK. I would have thought that BBC would have had rights - am pretty sure that they have shown the swimming and diving in the past - but don't see them on the broadcast list

Continuing the squad announcements for Glasgow, today we have BMX Olympic BMX champions Beth Shriever and Charlotte Worthington named in British squad for Worlds - BBC Sport BMX racing Elite Men: Ross Cullen, Quillan Isidore, Eddie Moore, Paddy Sharrock, Kye Whyte Elite Women: Beth Shriever Under-23 Men: Matthew Gilston, Callum Russell Under-23 Women: Emily Hutt Junior Men: Mark Fletcher, Alexander Talbott Junior Women: Betsy Bax, Ava Brown, Sienna Harvey BMX freestyle park Elite men: Declan Brooks, Shaun Gornall, James Jones, Jude Jones, Kieran Reilly, Dylan Hessey (reserve) Elite women: Sasha Pardoe, Holly Pipe, Charlotte Worthington For BMX Racing, really need Shriever to stay fit and healthy and to consistently be making finals so that they can move up the rankings and secure a second quota on the women's side. For the guys, whilst there is more depth, there isn't the same degree of consistency and they will also be looking to move up a couple of places in the rankings and secure 2 quotas. A top 3 finish in the freestyle events gets a quota for Paris. High hopes for Charlotte Worthington, Declan Brooks and Kieran Reilly, Hopefully they can use home advantage to book their tickets on the Eurostar next year.

A third shutout on the bounce for as they beat 7-0. The Irish girls had a bit of mare pitching in the 3rd innings and to give up all 7 runs and ended up falling foul of the Run Ahead Rule so the game ended after 5 innings. This guarantees a top 2 spot in group A although they still have to take on Botswana and USA tomorrow. Botswana should be a straightforward win but they'd love to get the win against the world number 1s as well.

Think the royal box will be disappointed that Svitolina wont be in the final - would be willing to bet that Olena Zelenska would have been invited as guest of honour and had Svitolina won, may well have appeared on court as part of the presentation party.

Squad Announced: Mountain Bike World Championships: Tom Pidcock, Rachel Atherton and Evie Richards in British squad - BBC Sport Men: Tom Pidcock, Cameron Orr, Cameron Mason Women: Evie Richards, Annie Last, Isla Short With Pidcock also appearing on the long list for the Road events, will be interesting to see if he attempts the double - theoretically the schedule would allow it with the elite road race taking place on Sunday 6th and the short track MTB on Tuesday 8th followed by elite cross country on Saturday 12th

I think are about to put major dent in the hopes of to make next year's finals. They win 2-0 to inflict a second defeat of the group on are world number 3 so this would be a big upset.

So whilst rounders isn't on the Olympic program for Paris, it is virtually certain to be back in for LA in 2028 - bye-bye breaking!! - and this could actually be one of the few team sports where secure a quota having come so close to getting to Tokyo. In the first round of matches at the World Cup Group A, , ranked 16th in the world defeated world number 9 2-0 for the only upset in the first round of matches. In other matches in the group, were 5-0 winners against and won 7-0 against

This weekend, Chamonix hosted the 2nd leg of the Lead World Cup Lead Men 1. Toby Roberts 2. Sam Avezou 3. Sorato Ankaru Lead Women 1. Jain Kim 2. Nonoha Kume 3. Helene Janicot Speed Men 1. Rahmad Adi Mulyono 2. Rishad Khaibullin 3. Raharjati Nursamsa Speed Women 1. Jajiah Sallsabillah 2. Victoire Andrier 3. Nural Iqamah That's Toby Roberts' second gold medal of the season having taken gold at the boulder event in Brixen. He also finished 4th in the lead event in Villars so with the World Championships coming up in a couple of weeks, could have outside prospect of sneaking an early quota from genuine medal contender for Paris.

Road royalty named in long-list squads for road and para-road world championships (britishcycling.org.uk) British Cycling have announced their initial long list of riders for the road races in Glasgow and whilst there are no major surprises on the women's side, for the men, there are perhaps a couple of interesting selection decisions as there is no place for either of the Yates brothers. Mark Cavendish is included, but given his injury at the Tour de France, that's got to be unlikely. Tao Geoghan Hart looks like he is continuing recovery after injury in the Giro and has also not made the cut. The final squad will be announced closer to the event but at most, only 4 of the top 8 GBR riders based on current ranking will make the squad and that could impact hopes of top 5 world ranking for full squad going to Paris.

Entry lists now available on FINA website. Surprised that Jack Laugher is not down for the individual 3m Springboard - he's only competing in the synchro event. Had high hopes of wrapping up the majority of our diving quotas this year but actually not sure that we've sent the most experienced international competitors to Fukuoka.

Is there a host quota available for women's doubles? The rankings list is showing Lambert/Tran at 32 in the ranking but are awarded the 15th quota ahead of Macpherson/Torrance and Yeung/Yeung

I know it makes a great picture but actually the conditions weren't that bad across the weekend - the men's 100m final was probably the only race that took place in driving rain. The bigger problem was probably the wind gusts which we always seem to get when we are in Manchester and which begs the question why were the trials held there instead of in Birmingham. It's a sign of how far off the pace our athletes have fallen that no British man has the Budapest qualifying standard for the 800m. There is no getting away from the fact that when you take out the few world class sprinters we have, add in Kodgkinson and Muir, there isn't much depth to GB athletics at the moment.

That's a depressingly short list for . Re McColgan, she already has the qualifying standard for Budapest (and Paris) so didn't need to go to the national trials - although I think she did pick up an injury earlier in the season which has curtailed her medal aspirations.

Don't see a route to Canada qualifying 6 athletes in taekwondo - in fact, I don't think there will be many nations able to qualify more than 4 athletes with the exception of China (and they'll only do it because of the unbalanced nature of the Grand Slam Champions Series) At the moment, only Skylar Park is in a qualifying position, so Canada would be able to enter 2 men and 1 woman into the PanAm continental qualifier so at best I think Canada will field 4 athletes in Paris.

Yeah it is too late for Paris but if we want to get GBR to LA in 28, then the conversations need to start soon. Unfortunately not seeing much impetuous for it.

In all the write ups that I've seen so far about the match, not one has referenced the fact that with that result, the lads would/should have qualified for the Olympics. Looks like this will be a missed opportunity to open the dialogue around Team GB.

Am aware that all home nations would need to reach agreement but it is the 80-20 principle - the Scottish FA is the primary roadblock to Team GB. There is no point in entering discussion with Wales and Northern Ireland without having Scotland onboard.

Won't happen for Paris but the strength of the Under 21's performance may, just may, be the catalyst to start conversation between FA and SFA. The SFA are worried that agreeing to Team GB will mean that they will lose their independence and wont be eligible for Euros or World Cup even though I think both UEFA and FIFA have said that would not be the case.

To be fair, I think there are always 2 men's matches on centre court on day 1 and always 2 women's matches on day 2 although recently, Venus Williams has tended to be relegated to Court 2 - but the organisers probably assume this will be her last year here so wanted to give her a centre court farewell and given what she achieved in the sport, who would argue with that.