Rafa Maciel

If my assumptions from above hold true, the quarter-finals would look something like this: v - Australia probably would start as favourite v - Could be close but GBR have really poor track record against USA so USA likely to edge it v - Could go either way - can only find 1 match up between the two so far this season and FRA came out on top - both GBR and IRL would need FRA to win in order to keep quota hopes alive. v - NZL to run out comfortable winners. So assuming IRL, GBR and FIJ all lose in the quarter finals, the 5th place semi-finals would be: v - Will be close but on current form, GBR could just have the edge v - FIJ would start as strong favourites This could lead to a scenario where would compete against for 5th place and were up against for 7th. In this scenario, would be slight favourite to take 5th, with 6th and 7th. Final points totals: - 72 - 72 - 72 Don't have a clue who would qualify in that case

Pools for the final round of the 22/23 Rugby 7s event in Toulouse have been announced and with only 4 points separating Ireland, Fiji and GBR it's all to play for in the battle for the final automatic Olympic berth and realistically, whichever of these teams is able to reach the semi-finals will bag the quota. Pool A Should be relatively straightforward group - will come out on top followed by . The key challenge for will be to minimise the scale of defeat against if they are in with hope of taking a quarter final place. NB - haven't seen in the tournament before so nothing to gauge their performance on but assume that greater experience will give them the edge. Pool B This one could be close. Based on current form, should edge it to finish top of the group. Key match likely to be v to decide who takes second place. Again, based on form, think will be most likely winner, but should still be able to make the quarter finals as one of the best 3rd place finishers. Pool C The only real question in this group is whether or emerge as group leaders. They've competed against each other 5 times in the last 4 events and edge the head-to-head by 3-2 so it is a tough call. Will go out on a limb and say to take the win (but actually would perhaps like them to lose as it could give them an easier quarter-final). likely to take 3rd place and probably be able to do enough to take final quarter final spot.

To be honest after October 17th I will go back to ignoring the rankings but until then, I'll be trying to figure out what need to do to get a full team in Paris.

A pretty good week overall for team GB cyclists with Pidcock taking second on the Liege-Bastogne-Liege today and Geoghegan Hart winning the Tour of the Alps. This should result in a big swing towards GB in the rankings - not sure it will be enough for them to overtake Netherlands but should slash the deficit from 1,000 points to a couple of hundred.

Great result for Healey in the individual event but really disappointing results from both the men's and women's teams. women won this event last year so got to expect a big drop in their world ranking.

dropped back to 90th in this week's ranking list because the results from the 2022 Argentine National Championships are no longer included in the ranking. climbed into top 40 ranking after strong performances from Sanchez Vargas in the Central American Championship.

Happy to admit it looks like I was wrong!! Men's sprint team to race for Bronze whilst the women take 4th. Not forgetting both pursuit teams taking home golds so at the end of the Nations Cup, Team GB still looking pretty good for a full squad for Paris. (although would still advocate wrapping Katie Archibald in bubble wrap until she steps foot on the plane)

Can't believe GB decided not to take up their place in the pre-qualification tournament. OK, they were unlikely to qualify, but let's be honest, they don't get a huge amount of international competition so how do they hope to improve if they're not even going to bother trying. UK Sport (so basically UK taxpayers) awarded GB Basketball 1.3 million for this Olympic cycle as part of their Paris Pathway program - but where has the money gone? We've seen nothing from the 3x3 squads despite the success and excitement that they generated during last year's Commonwealth Games and now they don't even want to try to qualify the men's team for Paris. It's smacks of pretty poor management within the sport but then again, basketball is not alone in that respect in UK sport right now.

Not loving the look of either of the Team Sprint squads - could be a really low scoring stop for us unfortunately.

Whilst that idea would be sensible, I think history shows us that GB Swimming isn't always sensible in their selection policies - I struggle to think of any other federation that has had to change their selection policy halfway through their trials because they realised their policy was nuts. I think the priority for the 2024 Worlds is going to be on the relays - they'd be perfectly happy to come away without a single individual medal if they can get full quota of relay places. Going by previous selection policies, I think any individual medalists from this year's World Champs has a chance of being pre-selected for Paris but for the majority of the squad, selection is going to come down to performances at the 2024 trials which should take place in April next year.

I think it is safe to say that for Team GB, results in 2023 are going to be pretty meaningless for Olympic qualification. I fully expect that they will only select athletes who have secured the qualifying times in 2024.

Agree to an extent - Tulloch isn't an all around gymnast, but with Fraser and Jarman in the team, it could be argued that we don't really need another all-rounder. Rings and High Bar tend to be GB's weakest apparatus. With Fraser and Tulloch in the team, you've got 2 athletes who are capable of scoring 14.2-14.7 which is much higher than the rest of the team and makes it easier for the team to hit a score of 43 for that rotation.

I think the problem for Luke Whitehouse is that he seems to be a bit of a floor specialist and isn't currently carrying high 13s/low 14s in the other apparatus. I think, assuming everyone is fully fit, the selectors are pretty much guaranteed to go with Joe Fraser, Jake Jarman and Courtney Tulloch. That would leave 2 open spots. It would be difficult to leave Whitlock at home given his strength on the pommel and if he is able to get 14+ on high bar, he could book his spot. That would leave James Hall and Regini-Moran fighting for the last spot.

are 1 of only 3 nations announced so far taking a full squad to Doha

UK Athletics could make up to TEN members of staff redundant in their battle for financial survival | Daily Mail Online UK Athletics seems to be managing their finances almost as effectively as the SNP On a more serious note, it does look like UK Athletics has been woefully mismanaged over many years and whilst they can say that they are going to insulate the high performance squad, I think we are going to see the effects through significantly smaller squads for big international events.

Having watched the European Champs this week, I'm struggling to see the point of the music for the women's floor routines. None of the gymnasts seemed to have coordinated the elements of their routines to the beat and tempo of the music. They could just as easily have performed the routine in silence for all the difference it makes.

I guess my take on this is that on the women's side, GB are benefiting from an improving Italy and vice versa - it's pushing both teams to get better and better and they know that there is a potential medal up for grabs in Paris. I would say that both teams rely on their big names performing and perhaps GB have an edge in terms of the depth of squad available - shown by the great performance from Beckie Downie on the uneven bars. The British men are stronger than Italy but the squad that we have taken to Turkey isn't our strongest so Italy taking the gold was a fair reflection of the teams current status. GB really need Joe Fraser and Giarnni Regini Moran to be fully fit and more consistent performances from Jake Jarman. Add in Courtney Tulloch and the possible return of Max Whitlock and that is a pretty solid team with medal potential across multiple events. The one benefit for GB at the moment is that having got their Olympic qualification in the bag last year, this is a free year for them - so everyone that needs to is going under the surgeon's knife now and/or reworking their routines to increase degree of difficulty.

So close..... but no cigar!

France and Mongolia have already announced full strength squads of 18 and the GB selection policy said "each delegation may enter a maximum of 9 entries in total for men and 9 entries in total for women, and in each weight category of men or women, a maximum of 2 athletes can be entered." So they absolutely could have taken Ham and Platten had they wanted to.

Squad announced today for next month's World Champs in Doha... no major surprises although a couple of potential missed opportunities. On the women's side: 48Kg - Amy Platten didn't make the cut. She was probably a bit unlucky not to get selected. She met 2 of the 4 criteria - top 45 of OQL and 2 European Open medals - but didn't get the nod. 52Kg - Chelsie Giles wasn't selected. Basically they think her qualification is pretty much in the bag so are choosing to prioritise the Masters tournament instead. 57Kg - Lele Nairne and Nekoda Smythe Davis both make the list leaving Acelya Toprak as a reserve. Smythe Davis got the nod given her stronger results at Grand Slam level so no real surprise. Looking forward to Nairne and Smythe Davis fighting it out for the GB No1 spot. 63Kg - Lucy Renshall. Given that Giles is not going, I've got to assume that Renshall may have been given the option to skip as well because she is sitting pretty comfortable in the qualification list as we approach the end of the first period. 70Kg - both Kelly Petersen-Pollard and Jemima Yeats-Brown will be there. At the moment, both are on the edge of automatic qualifying spot so both could benefit from a decent run. 78Kg - Emma Reid and Natalie Powell will both compete. Powell has slipped back in the rankings recently after a couple of disappointing results. Both will really benefit from a good run. For the men: 60Kg - Samuel Hall is on the team but given he didn't meet the selection criteria I assume he was a discretionary selection. 66Kg - Charlie Young was selected ahead of Michael Fryer. Young is ranked 20 places lower than Fryer in the OQL so not sure what the rationale was here 73Kg - No place on the team for Eric Ham which is a shame. He is ranked in the top 35 and isn't a million miles away from edging towards an automatic qualifying spot. 81Kg - Lachlan Moorhead is on the team. Like the girls in the 70Kg, Moorhead is on the cusp of an auto qualifying spot so really hoping he can have a decent run and bank some points. 90Kg - Jamal Petgrave got the nod. He was in an automatic qualifying spot for so long but has fallen back more recently. Needs to get through a couple of rounds to bank the points. 100Kg - Harry Lovell-Hewitt got the nod over Rhys Thompson. Although Thompson is ranked higher than Lovell-Hewitt, his points total is pretty much down to a single result at the Perth Open whereas Lovell-Hewitt has medaled at 3 European Open events. So 13 out of a possible 18 places filled although not actually sure whether Sam Hall will take his spot - he's been listed in so many events this year but never appears in the draw. Definitely think we should have taken Eric Ham in the 73Kg. I think there is a good chance that Moorhead and Petgrave could get auto qualifying spot which would mean we need someone in the 60Kg/66Kg/73Kg classes in order to be in the Olympic team event.

Undisputed? That's stretching your credibility just a bit - remind me which European nation was the only one to qualify for Olympics at the 1st opportunity cos it certainly wasn't Italy . Don't get me wrong - a great result for the Italian guys but they barely scraped home against a seriously weakened Team GB.

Wonder what Dave Murdoch was thinking as he was watching on in his new Team Canada uniform.

Watching the GB trials this evening I see British Swimming have gone a bit nuts with their qualifying times for the World Champs - their qualifying time for the men's 100m was faster than the current British Record - so although we've had a few swimmers who have hit the official Olympic qualifying time, I don't think any of them will have hit the GB standard yet.

The LTA and Wimbledon took a decision last year to ban Russian and Belarussian athletes from taking part - and have reversed their decision this year - but it was ultimately their decision and not the government's. So with the exception of the women's boxing world champs which events have Team GB boycotted?

I wonder if the IOC plan is ultimately to say that they will let Russian and Belarussian athletes compete but with conditions in place that neither country will accept so that ultimately Russia and Belarus refuse to participate. That would allow the IOC to claim to have the moral high ground.