RussB

Disappointing to hear, I was starting to follow the archery in 2023 with news of the successes of Ella Gibson and Penny Healey were having. And then had to be educated about the different varieties of archery event, with there being no compound events at the Olympics in particular. Good news about the boys anyway, effective timing!

I owe Greg a big disservice there in not mentioning him. Brain is clearly tired. The girls in the LJ I skipped over for brevity but yes although arguably the talent for the 3 of them didn’t translate into frequent senior outdoor global success which is what I was referring to with JE and SB in particular.

Certainly does feel like it needs something fresh at the junior / grassroots level. Lessons must be able to be learnt from the middle distance evolution in the UK that has made such a strength out of 800-1500m and beyond up to 10k. Perhaps we were spoilt by the era of Backley / Edwards / Idowu. Since then it’s been Sophie Hitchon in and HB in the PV who have made a dent at the highest level in the field events. All hopes on Molly in Paris!

As an aside that sort of time bodes well for Yeargin being one of the 4 chosen in the relay final. Also she might well be a contender to run in the mixed relay (at least heat) if she doesn’t make the individual. I’m hoping we get a couple more field athletes there, it’s sad to see so little GB representation. The two boys in the hammer are banging on the door, and it would be great to see someone break through in the javelin again.

Any outside chance of Penny in the individual?

Yeah this I agree with. It will be fast and close between the top few. I know confidence is high in the UK squad on this one, but probably need a jump forward by Alex/Jacob to really be a good medal threat.

Fortunately the Olympics won’t follow the times of the trials precisely. China for instance perform certainly doesn’t follow a uniform pattern looking at previous champs. I expect Aus will be much faster than trials. US favs of course, but Brits will be hopeful of pushing them close.

From a GBR perspective there will be high hopes of a medal in the 4x1 men’s free relay (it’s going to be tight for gold with USA and AUS, with other contenders not out of the reckoning). but main hope for the day will be Tarling. I have Tarling as the favourite for gold on such a flat parcours, followed by Evenepoel and Ganna.

Possibly. I still feel in my heart Freya will win bronze as very much in my mind she is still in the upward arc of her development. Really has developed into a very talented swimmer at the highest level. summer is on a different plane and Grimes may prove too tough but I think Freya will be right there behind those 2. Angharad we just need to see it on the biggest stage I guess in the other thing. At trials it seemed the pressure got the better of her going out a little bit too hard.

Would certainly be a shock medal. I don’t think any of us had forecasted this one (nor swimming media channels I follow). I really hope the women’s squad come away with something individually, would be a nice boost for the continued development of the programme. Freya C in the 400 IM is the only one I really believe is a genuine chance.

Anyone got any idea what time she would probably have to go to make an Olympic final in the individual?

She absolutely smashed it as well. Very promising for her down in the 65s.

you and me both.

My feeling is a bit more positive on GB. Rowing has really turned a corner and there are a few very strong boats that’ll be very tough to beat (LW2, women’s 4, men’s pair, men’s 8 and women’s quad at the top end). I think 4-6 golds is a fair estimate as things stand. the track cycling team is formidable as mentioned above. Both pursuit squads look like they can return to the top of the mountain with Tarling brought in; Finucane looks like the quickest female sprinter and could be in line for the sprint triple. Add in Archibald, Barker & Evans, plus Hayter, Vernon and there are 9 good gold medal shouts. GB will be optimistic of delivering on many of those. I have Tarling winning the ITT and beyond that Pidcock to win the mountain bike. BMX would appear to be less fruitful this time but Beth should still have a punchers chance at retaining if getting back fit post injury. Swimming will be tough but there are a few opps to get a few golds, less clear cut chances though. Could be anything from 0-4 at the high end (peaty, richards/ Scott, 4x2 free M, 4x1 free M, Ben Proud all have leading chances) Athletics - harder but there are a few gold medal chances: caudery hodgkinson Kerr Hughes (100) MHS but relays should bring a few medals too. Sailing and diving look set to bring a fair number of medals in (although I doubt many golds due to dominance of China in the diving). Equestrian looks set to be very good for GB given the strength across all 3 disciplines. Charlotte’s development with ImHoTep is particularly significant for the dressage hopes. Gymnastics - lots of chances but hard to predict a gold medal outside of Jake on vault or Max on pommel. Bryony on trampoline may be a lesser predicted gold too. There should be a few chip ins from canoe slalom/ modern pentathlon (Joe c)/ taekwondo/ triathlon (potter and yee will start as favs, the team may struggle to beat France though!). A shock gold in the archery (penny healey) or shooting is not outside the realms of possibility either. The sport that looks like taking a backward step is clearly boxing. But lots for GB fans to be excited about for Paris 2024. A rough estimation of 25 golds and 60 medals.

Annoyingly I'm normally the positive one on these forums. Always beating the drum for potential GB successes, but yes these Champs have not been so positive. The 4x1 girls did the job very nicely, as they should have done tbh but no mistakes with the baton is always reassuring. Lansiquot to come into the first team you'd imagine come Paris and they should be in that battle for a minor medal. PS Jamaica at this point in the season do not look like a gold medal threat. Thompson in particular has looked really badly off the pace, its one to keep an eye on as the season progresses.

I don't think anyone here is looking to "peak" here, apart from (very) arguably Italy being the host nation and I'm only saying that due to the absolutely ridiculous medal haul. I completely understand not being here because your training is fully wrapped around UK trials and Paris. So for MHS or Zharnel Hughes, I get it. I don't love it, but I can accept that. So we were always not going to be right at the top of the medal table, and that's fine with the focus being on trials and then Paris. HOWEVER, what I can't accept is committing to compete here, and then doing it in a half-assed way which is what the relay selections look like. Seriously what is the point of even running the 4x4 tonight? That team was never winning a medal, and you've damaged the confidence of someone you really need to step up and be in our best 4 come trials. What did they learn tonight which they didn't know from the previous runs this week? If it was all about trials they should have just withdrawn and they could have cited niggles.

I'm just frustrated. We take the time to tune in and watch and be invested, to watch GB compete for medals and I hate this rolling over mentality for a potential reason of resting for trials which is not for a couple of weeks. Just makes us look weak in a championships where other nations have really stepped up and impressed.

Issue with relay splits is you have to take them with a big pinch of salt. The problem with putting AHW on 4th leg is this tends to be where other teams put their most capable runner. So it's less his split, rather the fact he went from 3rd to 7th all down the home straight. I have no idea why Martyn Rooney wanted to put Alex in this position given his form. What does this do to his confidence going forward for trials? I'd imagine pretty decimated. If someone can come up with a good argument for why we were sacrificing a medal tonight to improve our chances in Paris I'd sign up. But I've not seen one yet, and my brain can't come up with something given we are nowhere near trials, nor are there any further events to run here in Italy. There would have been no detriment by putting a stronger team out tonight for Paris unless one of the additions got injured in the relay itself. And we can't be using that as a reason otherwise none of them would run any races before Paris! Maybe management came up with a rule that said no one runs more than two 400m races if it can be helped for "workload management", but then against AHW ran 3 times so that logic fails too.

Well he gave away a medal with exactly the form he displayed earlier in the week. We have no info on an injury to Charlie unless I'm missing something? Well done to Michael for running a good leg 2 to bring them back into contention, and Davey's leg wasn't bad either. With the two Charlie's they could have won that. And despite Paris being the goal of this season, this should be viewed as a potential positive building block. Give the team some positive momentum before trials by winning a big title. Lay a marker down. But we argued in the same way over the mixed relay so I should save my breath. I want to see a team trying to win, thats all.

They have a chance, a good chance, to win a major title, with all individual events done and no one over worked, and they pass it up. Sorry, as a fan of GB athletics, its pretty pathetic to me to just mail it in with a much weaker team. Why is Charlie C being rested?! Alex has shown utterly no form over two individual races already at this champs, throwing him in the closing leg is going to do more harm than good

Asha Phillip was not very impressive in the heat so this is the right change. They should be winning gold here with a clean run

what a disappointment. So frustrating

I certainly would not be classifying MHS as favourite as things stands so yes we do differ. I’m not confident he will deliver his best when it matters in the final. Just my gut feeling and his tendency to go too hard (a la 2023 world champs final) means I can’t have him to be fav. The men’s 400m this year is super open, so perhaps I’ll qualify my statement as I don’t think there is going to be a clear favourite come Paris. I would LOVE to be wrong, I’ll be in the stadium shouting myself coarse for Matt or Charlie to take the title. Out of curiousity, if you disagree with our top 4 being favs in the mixed relay, which squad do you have as beating us? If the US, what likely personnel does that involve?

But this is precisely my point. The US will very likely not take this approach with the mixed relay. The squads that would - Ireland, Netherlands (possibly) are extremely beatable with GB's best 4 out. I still think the US would be the main danger simply due to the depth that they have in the event but chances are so much higher than the individual events (we can ignore the men's and women's relays because the US will be far too strong). I would strong disagree with "that doesn't mean our athlete's believe that" they have a good chance to win gold with our best squad. The team and the athletes will know going into Paris (IF everyone is healthy), you have probably 2 of the quickest men at the games, plus Amber who should be making the individual final + Lavaia, this is a quartet that even the US would recognise as being a handful. And again, I've consistently said they probably won't prioritise the mixed relay because of their focus on the individual. In particular MHS, and I suspect Amber and Charlie will follow suit (all for one and one for all approach). Whether its "right" or "wrong" is almost a misleading question, I'm sure for the athlete's whose profession is by its nature an individual one, then the allure of Olympic individual honours far outshines the chance of a gold that is dependent on many more variables outside of their own performance. This can certainly hold true whilst at the same time it being true, that being from a purely statistical chance of a gold medal in Paris on the track in the 400m events, GB would be better suited by going all in on the mixed relay. The let down was always likely given missing Kerr/Weightman, Hughes/Hinchliffe, Anning and Muir I agree. I'm not 100% convinced the other squad members listed would have made much of a difference to the overall feel of the meet. There were opportunities for the existing squad here however, and in an event with high performances across the board (NRs seem to be broken on a regular basis) that hasn't applied for GB who are admittedly focusing on their trials next month. Even with that admission however, I think many of the athletes will leave here not pleased. Neita, Molly, Reekie, KJT...the men's sprint squad as a whole (barring Rommell), the list goes on. There were an unhelpful combination of some poor performances in finals, plus near misses. Still one day left, hopeful for Gourley to make his mark at 1500m, Patrick in the 10k, the boys in the 4x4 [will be interesting to see the quarter chosen, the 2 Charlie's + Toby + 1 other], girls in the 4x1 to lay down a marker [hopefully Neita comes in for Asha and they put Amy on lead off] and of course Keely tonight can put more of a gloss on the Champs for GBR.

Glad at least someone agrees with me on this forum 🤣🤣