Rafa Maciel

Having been one of the few international federations to allow Russian and Belarussian athletes to compete, the IJF have now elected to ban Russia and Belarus until January 2023.

I was under the impression that the Lightweight Double has already been dropped from the 2028 schedule with it potentially being replaced by coastal rowing.

Ros Canter was the drop score for GBR Team at the end of dressage phase and ends up being the top counter them at the end of show jumping. Never seen that happen before. To make it worse, she misses out on the bronze medal because she went round the cross country course too quickly

Disappointing to see that Team GB are not fielding entries across all of the Olympic events. No Women's 8, Men's Double Sculls or Men's Lightweight Double Sculls. Given the much improved performance of the team since the relative disaster of the Tokyo regatta, I had hoped that we could be pushing towards a full squad for Paris. Hopefully they can get their act together before next years all important qualification regatta.

Have to say the commentary for this event has been pretty poor - Lucinda Green really hasn't been keeping up with what's been happening on course. She has just heaped praise on Andrew Hoy without picking up on the fact that they had 2 refusals/runouts.

They are still showing as under review but they are the only ones on the leaderboard like this. All the other reviews seem to have been resolved. That may suggest that the penalty has been upheld and an appeal has been lodged

France will fail to finish as a team - luckily for them they have automatic host qualification

With the first line riders for the team event all completed, Switzerland lose one of their overnight counters with the elimination of Minder. That will possibly help Team Italy move closer to a qualifying spot in the top 7. France's Astier Nicolas and Canada's Haley Awad likely to become a drop scores for their respective teams. A clear round for Ros Canter means GBR have a good fall back should anything go wrong for their overnight counters.

Whilst I don't disagree with your comments about the logistical challenge of post-Brexit I don't think it has had such a large impact on the volume of European competitors in British competitions. The majority of international competitors in British competitions have, from what I can see, generally come from New Zealand, Australia and America. Part of the reason for this is that many of these international riders are based in UK. From European perspective, pre-Covid, Ireland and Sweden tended to make up the majority of European riders - Germany and to a lesser extent France didn't really take part in British competitions. Arguably, we're still seeing the impact of Covid unwinding as the equestrian calendar gets back to normal - historically you could travel to UK for 10-14 days and be able to compete in 2-3 high quality events but that is more difficult in 2022 as there are bigger gaps in the calendar still.

Why would Brexit make GB Eventing stronger?

So Team GB finish the championships with 2 quota places for Paris. Normally this would viewed as a great achievement and it undoubtedly is, but it's difficult not to be a little frustrated by those 3rd place finishes in the Men's Trap and Skeet events - particularly the Trap where Hales missed out by virtue of his qualification position.

I don't think the music actually changes - only the wording for those who will be singing

Actually Her Majesty was a qualified mechanic so if your car got damaged, she could probably have helped you out. In fact she is probably the only head of state who would have the ability to strip an engine

Badminton player Toby Penty has announced his retirement from the sport. Whilst he probably didn't make the impact that he would have liked and he was unlikely to be challenging for a medal, his departure is likely to mean that Team GB will not qualify a quota in the Men's Singles event. This would be the first time since the sport was introduced in Barcelona that GB wont have participant in the Men's Singles.

The qualification window for Judo opened at the end of June and so far there have been 8 qualifying events staged - 2 Grand Slams, 1 Grand Prix and 5 Continental Opens. Annoyingly, the IJF haven't got their act together for the last couple of months and they haven't been publishing the Olympic Ranking list on their website. I've gone through the results from 7 of the 8 qualifying events - I haven't included the results of Tahiti Oceania Open - to generate my own tracker of current qualification position. Couple of caveats: 1) This only covers the top 17 in the rankings (and France as hosts) - it doesn't take into account the continental quotas 2) Russia are included in the list despite the fact that they haven't been competing on the tour. At the moment, the rankings are heavily driven by the results from the Grand Slams and Russia were included in and performed pretty well at the Ulaanbaatar GS. I guess with the World Champs taking place in Uzbekistan, there is a possibility that Russian judokas may be there too. In terms of the team event, at the moment, by my reckoning the following nations would be qualified: It's still early days and a lot will change will change before the end of the qualification window

Archery One of the sports where the delay of the Asian games will potentially have an impact on qualification prospects. Both the men’s and women’s teams should be able to qualify but the men’s team lacks consistency. The women’s team is well placed in the world ranking list so even if they miss out through the qualifying tournaments, they would still qualify via their ranking. Total: 3-6 Athletes Artistic Swimming Artistic swimming has never really been a priority for British Swimming but there are signs that is beginning to change slightly, including the creation of a new High Performance Centre last year. For the first time since 2013, GB entered the team event at the World Championships where by all accounts, they performed solidly finishing 12th in the Free routine and 9th in the Technical final. The team were also in Rome where they finished 6th and 7th. Currently, the team’s routines are about 3-5 points adrift of what they would need to be if they were looking to qualify for the team event. Instead, the best chance of qualifying likely to come from the duet. Total 0-2 Athletes Athletics Athletics has always thrown up some controversial decisions when it comes to selections because UK Athletics has historically applied a fairly rigid selection criteria and, if they don’t believe you’ll make a final, they’re not wildly keen on selecting you. World Athletics haven’t published their qualifying standard yet, but based on what we’ve seen for Budapest ’23, it’s clear that they want to prioritise qualification through ranking rather than through qualifying times/distances. Assuming that British Athletics applies same criteria as they did for Eugene World Championships there will be athletes who will have legitimate claim to go who will be left at home. Total: 65-80 Athletes Badminton Qualification window doesn’t open until May 2023 but based on current world ranking lists and assuming that nobody retires in the intervening period, we should qualify in all of the events – Toby Penty and Kirsty Gilmour in the Singles; Chloe Birch and Lauren Smith in Women’s Doubles; Marcus Ellis and Lauren Smith for Mixed Doubles; and Ben Lane and Sean Vendy in Men’s Doubles. Given the qualification criteria – the need to be in the top 8 (doubles) or top 16 (singles) – I would say the only realistic prospect of getting multiple qualification berths would be in the Men’s Doubles with Marcus Ellis & Chris Langridge but it is unlikely. Total: 7-8 Athletes Basketball It’s possible that both teams will make the grade to participate in the Pre-Qualifying/Qualifying Tournaments, but they are unlikely to make much headway. Total: 0 Athletes 3x3 Basketball Given the performance at Commonwealth games, there is a 3x3 presence within Britain but not exactly visible. Given the restricted nature of the both the Olympic field and the qualification pathway, it is difficult to see how Team GB could qualify. Total: 0 Athletes Beach Volleyball Only realistic prospect for qualification would be with the Bello twins in the Men’s competition but it is a bit of a longshot. Their best chance for qualification will come through the Olympic ranking with 17 spots up for grabs. Their current world ranking is 54 which would put them into 42nd in the race to Paris. Unfortunately, one of them suffered a fractured hand at a tournament this month which will sideline them for a few weeks and prevent them picking up additional ranking points ahead of the opening of the qualifying window in January. To have a realistic chance of qualifying, they will need to start consistently qualifying for, and scoring points at the Elite 16 level events. Total: 0-2 Athletes Boxing British boxers performed pretty well at the recent Commonwealth Games so have a decent squad to target qualification. Based on the last few cycles, Team Gb have qualified 10-12 Boxers and at this stage, there’s no reason to think we wouldn’t repeat that for Paris. Total: 10-12 Athletes Breaking God only knows why this has been elevated to an Olympic sport. Don't know, don't care. According to Team GB website, “some of the best b-boys and b-girls in the world are British” – this isn’t reflected in the world rankings though so not sure how true the statement is and to be honest, I don’t really care. Total: 0-2 Athletes Canoeing-Sprint For a nation that has a strong track record in the water-based sports, we don’t perform all that well in sprint canoe even though we have a pretty good para-canoe team. Based on the world championship results from this year, I think we have realistic prospects of qualifying for the women’s K2 and K4 events but I don’t see anything to suggest there will be many on the men’s side. Total: 2-6 Athletes Canoeing-Slalom Team GB will be well placed to qualify across all 6 events but it is likely that athletes will be doubling up across the events. On the women’s side I would guess that Mallory Franklin and Kimberly Woods will make the team alongside Joe Clarke. Not sure who the 2 guy would be, but probably Adam Burgess. Total: 2-4 Athletes Cycling-Track The qualification window opened in July and as it currently stands, Team GB is in a strong position to be able to qualify a full team – they seem to have been able to put together a consistent Women’s Sprint Team which was previously the weak link in the team. This doesn’t have a huge impact in terms of the overall size of the squad, however it would mean that we would have two athletes riding in the Women’s Sprint and in the Women’s Keirin. Total: 14-16 Athletes Cycling – Road The British men are not that far off getting full quota of 4 riders for the road race but chances are they won’t be able to push their world ranking high enough so will end up with team of 3. They will probably end up with 2 athletes in the Time Trial. On the women’s side, the British ranking is heading in the wrong direction. As it currently stands, they would only qualify a team of 2 for the road race with 1 rider going in the Time Trial. Total: 5-7 Athletes Cycling-BMX Racing Qualification opened this month and based on current world ranking, Team GB should be well placed to secure 2 spots for both men and women this time around. The depth of the field on the men’s side is pretty good but on the women’s side, it is largely dependent on Bethany Schriever’s performances – if she gets injured then it’s not impossible that GBR could drop down the rankings. Total: 2-4 Athletes Cycling-BMX Freestyle Far and away, this is the worst qualification procedure I’ve seen and whoever was involved in drafting and signing off on it should have been dismissed. I appreciate that they are trying to prioritise the Olympic Qualifier Series but the way that they have gone about it is absolutely ridiculous. Athletes could have to wait 18 months between performance and confirmation that they have secured qualification. Anyhow, Team GB have a reasonably strong team in this discipline and should be well place to qualify at least a couple of spots. Total: 2-4 Athletes Cycling-MTB Similar to BMX Racing, quotas will be based on ranking lists. Both men and women should be reasonably comfortable in qualifying 1 quota for both the men’s and women’s events. It’s not beyond the realms of possibility that GBR ranking will move in to the top 8 thereby securing a second quota but that is going to be largely dependent on the performances of Tom Pidcock and Evie Richards. Total: 2-4 Athletes Diving In the synchronised events, based on recent performances, Team GB should qualify in both the Men’s Springboard and Platform synchro events. The women’s results at the world championships weren’t as strong so it is likely to be more of a struggle for them. At this stage, I’d expect them to be OK for the platform but will miss out on the Springboard. Individually, I think we would get quota for the men and the women should have at least 1 in each discipline. The fact that we will likely have a lot doubling up in individual and synchro events will limit the overall size of the team. Total: 6-8 Athletes Equestrian With qualification secured for both dressage and show jumping, barring any major disasters, Team GB should be able to complete their equestrian qualification next month at the Eventing World Championships. Total: 9 Athletes Fencing With the majority of GBR teams languishing in the high teens/mid twentys in terms of world ranking, can’t see any scenario where Team GB are able to qualify for any of the team events. The best hope for qualification will be for a couple of individual spots but it will be tough. Total: 0-2 Athletes Field Hockey Both the men’s and women’s teams have qualified for the 2023 EuroHockey tournament which is the first opportunity to qualify for Paris but to do so would require them to win the tournament which, while not impossible, is unlikely. That would mean that in order to qualify, Team GB will need to go into the qualifying tournament. The change in format compared to Tokyo will make it more complicated and a lot will depend on the teams that they are drawn against. Both should make it through but their performances at the Nations Cup have shown that they can be derailed by lower ranked opposition. Total: 0-32 Athletes Football I’ve seen nothing to suggest that the Welsh and Scottish FAs have withdrawn their objection to fielding a men’s team. On the women’s side, Team GB were in Tokyo after an agreement across the home nations but not sure that a similar agreement has been reached for Paris. Annoyingly, UEFA don’t have a high enough regard for the quality of the Women’s European Championship to believe that it warrants being the route for qualification for Paris. Instead, they are likely to use next year’s World Cup with England needing to finish as one of the top two European countries. Of course, had they used the Women’s Euros 2022 as the qualifying tournament then Team GB would already be qualified alongside Germany. Total: 0-18 Athletes Golf Should be same as Tokyo – 2 men and 2 women. Total: 2-4 Athletes Gymnastics – Artistic Both teams will qualify – it’s just a question of whether either are able to do so at the 2023 World Championships in Liverpool later this year or will they qualify at next year’s tournament. The men’s team probably have the best chance to qualify this year but it is likely to be a fight with the USA for the third spot behind China and Japan. As I said though, if they don’t manage it this year, they should be able to do it via the 2023 World Championships. The biggest question will be whether Max Whitlock makes the team – Joe Fraser, Jake Jarman and Courtney Tulloch are likely nailed on for selection, injury permitting. Whitlock would therefore need to take the place of either James Hall or Giarnni Regini-Moran. If I was going to take a guess at this stage, Hall would be the most likely to lose out. On the women’s side, in recent years they seem to have fallen behind Italy and I don’t see that changing even with home field advantage in Liverpool. China, USA and Italy will probably take the team quotas this year but Team GB should be fine in 2023. Total: 10 Athletes Gymnastics-Rhythmic Team GB didn’t qualify for the team event at next month’s world championship and there is no reason to suspect that they will be able to qualify in 2023. They will probably be targeting qualifying an individual spot using Marfa Ekimova but it’s a longshot. Total: 0-1 Athletes Gymnastics-Trampoline Team GB had 2 quotas in the women’s event in Tokyo but didn’t qualify in the men’s event. For Paris, Zak Perzamanos has a decent chance of qualifying in the men’s event and Bryony Page should also take a spot. Just now, can’t see route to securing a second quota in either event but not beyond the realms of possibility. Total: 1-3 Athletes Handball GBR haven’t been able to capitalise on the sport’s popularity during London 2012 and I can’t see any evidence that the senior teams have been active for the last couple of years. Our junior team that has been taking part in international competitions but they are a long way off getting to level of challenging for qualification. Total: 0 Athletes Judo Our judokas have been the victim of either inconsistency or bad luck in the early stages of the qualification window but I still expect Team GB to qualify a decent number of places with the majority of them coming in the women’s events: Women’s -48Kg: Amy Platten – Has a chance, but is unlikely to make the grade on the ranking list Women’s -52Kg: Chelsie Giles – Has had a few mixed results since the qualification window opened but should still be good enough to qualify Women’s -57Kg: Acelya Toprak – Has been frustratingly inconsistent. Don’t think she will make it into top 17 for auto qualification but could make it in on continental ranking. Women’s -63Kg: Lucy Renshall – World number 1 but has been injured. Expected to make comeback for World Championships. Would still expect her to qualify. Women’s -70Kg: Kelly Petersen Pollard – Has had a couple of decent results so far in the qualification window and has a good chance of qualifying. Women’s -78Kg: Natalie Powell/Emma Reid – One of the few weight divisions where Team GB have a couple of judokas in contention. Am expecting one of them to qualify. Women’s +78Kg: Sarah Adlington – Not sure what Adlington’s plans are but she did compete and win at the Commonwealth Games. If she has the appetite to target Paris, she definitely has the ability to manage it. Men’s -60Kg: Sam Hall – Could have a chance of qualifying but needs to have some decent results at the bigger tournaments Men’s -81Kg: Lachlan Moorhead – Has competed a few tournaments already in the qualifying window with mixed results. If he can get some consistency, he could squeak qualification. Men’s -90Kg: Jamal Petgrave – Would need a big step up in performance if he wants to qualify. Men’s -100Kg: Harry Lovell-Hewitt – Like Petgrave, would need a couple of big performances if he is going to qualify. Men’s -66Kg, -73Kg & +100Kg: No real contenders Annoyingly the IJU website tracking qualification ranking points hasn’t been working for the last few weeks making it difficult to keep track of qualifying positions. Total: 4-8 Athletes Modern Pentathlon Jo Choong will probably look to defend his title and his younger brother Henry will look to secure a second quota but he may fall just short. The depth of the team on the women’s side is a little deeper and they should be able to qualify 2 athletes. Total: 2-4 Athletes Rowing Tokyo was a disappointing rowing regatta for Team GB both in terms of the number of boats qualified and the number of medals returned. Results from the recent European Championships gives cause for optimism for improved performance on both metrics. At the moment, there is a chance that we could qualify all boats across the regatta but in the end, I think it is likely that we would miss out on a couple with the women’s single sculls and men’s double sculls perhaps being the boats most likely to miss out. Also have to say there is some doubt around the women’s eight. It hasn’t raced much this season and at the European championships, was made up of rowers who had doubled up from the pair and four and it has been suggested that they are not planning on entering a women’s eight and the World Championships later in the year. Total: 43-48 Athletes Rugby 7's With a lot of gnashing of teeth, the home nations have merged their individual teams into a single Team GB as they look to secure qualification in the 22/23 Rugby-7s season. Recent results and rankings have all been heading in the wrong direction so qualifying is likely to be an uphill struggle. My heart says that both teams will qualify but my head tells me that neither will. Total: 0-24 Athletes Sailing There has been a few retirements and boat changes since Tokyo, but GBR have traditionally performed well on the water and no reason why we shouldn’t qualify a full team across all boat types. Total: 14 Athletes Shooting Team GB are reasonably strong in the shotgun events and we already have a quota spot for the Women’s Trap from this weekend’s European Shotgun Championship and we were unlucky not to get a second quota via the Men’s Trap. I think we have good chances for 2 more quotas at the Europeans through Amber Hill and Ben Llewellin in the Skeet events. If they were both successful, we would also have a spot in the Mixed Skeet event. I would argue that there is the possibility of further quotas in the Trap events later this year. I expect that through Nathan Hales, Aaron Heading and Matthew Howard-Colley, we should be able to secure 2 quotas for the Men’s Trap whilst Kirsty Hegarty is in with a good shout of securing a second quota in the women’s event. The pistol and rifle events aren’t all that strong for Team GB. I’m not sure what her current form is like, but our best chance for quota spot would lie with Seonaid McIntosh in the 50m Rifle 3 Positions event. If she can get a quota in that event, she would also be able to enter the 10m Rifle event. Total: 4-7 Athletes Skateboarding Sky Brown is the headline name for Team GB in this discipline and I fully expect her to be back in Paris. Looking at the world rankings, I would say there is a possibility that we could also edge qualification in Men’s Park with outside chance of getting into the Men’s Street event. Total: 1-3 Athletes Sport Climbing Not a huge fan of the qualification procedure for the Speed disciple - if you’re going to restrict the field to just 14 athletes, then you should restrict entry to 1 athlete per NOC. Given the limited field, I’d be surprised in a GB athlete squeezes into the mix. For Lead/Boulder discipline, there are a couple of Team GB athletes with the potential for qualification on the men’s side. Am keeping my eye on Max Milne and Hamish McArthur and think 1 could possibly make the cut. Total: 0-1 Athletes Surfing Can’t see a route for Team GB to qualify in either event Total: 0 Athletes Swimming British Swimming incorporate a maximum team size into their selection policy. From what I have seen, they are the only governing body that sets a limit on the number of athletes they will select. Based on the selection policy for Tokyo and this year’s World Championship, the maximum number of athletes that will be selected is likely to be 30. Total: 25-30 Athletes Swimming - Marathon Qualification basically all comes down to your ability to perform in 1 race, so God help you if you are ill during the 2024 World Championships. Chance of 1 quota for both men and women – but equal chance of not being able to secure any quota at all. Total: 0-2 Athletes Table Tennis I think there is a reasonable prospect of the Men’s team qualifying. To do so, they would need to reach the quarter finals of the world team championships in 2024 and the last time this competition was run, England got to quarter final before losing to Sweden. Will have better indication after we see the 2022 results. If they do manage to qualify, it would give them 2 quota spots in the individual event. Unfortunately, the women’s team isn’t as strong and I can’t see a pathway for them to qualify for the team event in 2024. At best they could be in line to qualify a single spot but Tin-Tin Ho is outside the top 100 so it is unlikely to be straightforward. Total: 2-4 Athletes Taekwondo Team GB has a fairly strong women’s Taekwondo team and we should qualify in 3 of the 4 weight classes with Jade Jones, Bianca Walkden and Lauren Williams. But all three will need to be ranked in the top 5 for their weight category at the end of 2023 or, win the Grand Slam Champions Series as it is unlikely that GB would be able to send anyone to the continental qualifying tournament. On the men’s side, Bradley Sinden should qualify by virtue of his ranking position. I assume that would allow GBR to send an athlete to try to qualify a further quota via continental qualifying tournament. With Mahama Cho having retired last year, it would probably be Caden Cunningham in the +80Kg category. Total: 3-5 Athletes Tennis Clay isn’t exactly the favourite surface for the majority of the British players so some may choose to skip it but then again, it is the Olympics so maybe that will be sufficient to draw them in. On the men’s side, Cam Norrie and Dan Evans would be expected to qualify. Jack Draper has had a decent rise up the rankings this year and would also qualify – as would Andy Murray, but I would be very surprised if he elected to go if he is still on the tour in 2024. GB should also get 2 teams in the men’s doubles through Joe Salisbury and Neal Skupski. For the women, a lot depends on Emma Raducanu. She’s currently inside the top 10 but is likely to plummet into the 70s after the US Open. It would likely still be high enough for her to qualify but she hasn’t really been able to capitalise on the success of last year which could then limit the tournaments that she is able to enter next year when the qualification window opens. The only other British woman who could get into qualification spot would be Hariet Dart but would need to see how progresses over the next year. Either way, I don’t see us being in a position to put forward a Women’s Doubles pair and it is unlikely we would qualify for the Mixed doubles. Total: 4-6 Athletes Triathlon Team GB have already secured qualification for the Mixed Relay and have 2 individual quotas for both the men’s and women’s events. In order to secure the third individual spot, we would need 3 athletes inside the top 30 in the Olympic Ranking. On the women’s side, there’s going to be intense competition for places in the team and there is no reason why we shouldn’t be able to secure that third individual quota. The picture is less certain for the men. A lot will depend on whether Jonathan Brownlee is looking to have another tilt at Olympic glory. If he is, then it becomes easier to see scenario where Team GB qualify 3 guys – Brownlee, Barclay Izzard and Alex Yee. If Brownlee decides he’s not targeting Paris, it becomes more difficult to see a path to securing 3 individual spots. Total: 5-6 Athletes Volleyball Don’t actually know if GBR have an elite level volleyball team. If they do, they don’t have a huge amount of presence. Total: 0 Athletes Weightlifting Likely to be one of the sports where Team GB will have reduced representation in Paris. The women’s team is pretty decent and I would expect them to secure the full 3 quotas. At the moment, I can’t see which of the British men would be likely to join them. Total: 0-3 Athletes Wrestling Nothing to see here – I think this is one of the few sports that the BBC don’t even bother to show highlights of. Total: 0 Athletes Pessimistic Totals – 249 Athletes Optimistic Total – 409 Athletes Realistic Total – 370 - 390 Athletes