Epic Failure

This was announced last week, but England Athletics confirmed a quote of 58 last week, as well as announcing the selection policy - https://www.englandathletics.org/news/glasgow-2026-commonwealth-games-selection-policy-announcement/ Assuming they fill the quota, would be a slightly smaller team than previous years (72 in Birmingham, 69 for Gold Coast). But that's at least partially explained by the removal of the single sex 4x4s and marathons. Scotland announced their team quota as well, which is 25 (down 2 from Birmingham but up 6 from Gold Coast, in terms of size) - https://www.scottishathletics.org.uk/team-size-25/

Hanlon is the most unlucky, in my opinion. Aside from relay cover, she's the 50m champ and they made a point of including consideration for those events being in LA for the other discretionary picks. Essentially she has the same case for selection as Max Morgan (albeit without the trajectory right now). Blocksidge's form was way off this week (compared to her previous bests). Obviously being still young you could put that down to relative inexperience. Still, she has World and European Juniors that she could still be selected for this summer. There's an argument that performing well at those might be as beneficial as going to Singapore. That said, I'm happy that they did take a bunch of discretionary picks. That's not always been the case.

Has the quota for Canada been offically confirmed anyway, or is that just a rumour? I can't find anything on google about it (nor the suggested quota for England's athletes someone posted earlier). 12 per gender would make sense (it's roughly what Canada sent to Birmingham). 12 overall seems dumb.

Yeah, I'd be shocked if they didn't enter a medley team, especially where it comes in the program. By that stage it isn't like any of the likely swimmers will have another event to prioritise, unless Evans decides to do the 50 (which she didn't even take part in this week. Shame about the mix up for the 4x100 free, although I wouldn't be surprised if that team goes (although whether they will take Taylor is more debateable). You'll have Okaro, Anderson, Colbert there anyway, along with Wood and Hope. If they don't enter it, you have to imagine it is because of workload issues more than anything else. The mixed free relay is the only one that you would say is really doubtful, especially not being an Olympic event. But even then you've probably got enough swimmers there to field a team if they want to.

It was the last event of the meet anyway, so they were never likely to do a swim off. If they wanted to decide in advance based on a race, more likely on a meet like Mare Nostrum. Both are pre-selected anyway because of the relay, so they both will be there anyway. Whichever gets the nod, we probably won't know until the week of. With GB's history of messing about, especially in the first year of a new Olympic cycle, who knows what we'll do. Knowing us, stick Tom Dean in there, make Duncan do the 200 fly and Jimmy the 400 free.

That's the funniest possible result in the 200m free.

All the sessions are also being streamed on the Aquatics GB youtube, which is helpful for those of us outside of the motherland not having to mess around with a VPN! At the halfway point of the champs, and about what you would expect from the first national champs of a new Olympic cycle. Nice to see some young swimmers (Mills, Schlosshan etc) start to make waves. Stand out performance thus far being Olly Morgan in the 100 back for sure.

My entirely snap judgment is that Judo and Badminton are *extremely* lucky to receive uplifts considering their recent record, and also that UK Sport clearly has little support for UKA right now.

Technically he became known as the 'brains' behind a small independent trade team that was outperforming national teams, before then working with the Danish TP in Tokyo. It was after all that happened that INEOS/GB finally came calling. I think they never fully appreciated his talents until it was almost too late.

The Red Wings' maverick approach of having practically no competent defenders or goalies has started about as well as you would imagine that it would. Looks like it could be a long season....

Completely dumb and unnecessary.

Well...mostly unstoppable.

Got a bit hairy late, but pull away from 58-55 in the rugby.

lead in the rugby 28-27 at the half.

https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/c990yd94j7eo These sportsmen and women are tough cookies.

Dammit. Had I made it to Paris I'd still have been in with a shot, but LA looks like I'll be aged out!

I'm sure he doesn't. But I'm sure that he feels better for the relay and probably wouldn't have benefitted if they had spent the entire week just telling him what an idiot he was for the FS. Maybe they did. Who knows? The point isn't to criticise winning but criticising winning at all costs (and therefore, by default, writing off those that didn't win but only got bronze or a top 8 finish as not worthy of admiration).

Which is even more impressive when you realise that some of France's top 8s were effectively guaranteed by being the host nation.

I think both are important. Like, I'm not going to criticise Australia and the Netherlands for being delighted with their gold figures in Paris. They should be rightly proud. Equally, I think we should be rightly proud of our overall performance, especially in terms of total medals. Other countries can be proud of their first medal, or in some cases their first final. There's not a limit to happiness! In related news, I'm pleased with the comments coming out of UK Sport, looking at both their own website and the Beeb story about the athletes coming back from the Games. I still hope that they (and the various sports) have the sensible tough discussions that all good governance should have but also that a "win at all costs" mentality is not necessarily conducive to healthy environments.

Men have competition from Ireland as well. Bigger issue will be whether Scotland will agree to work with the ECB on this or do a football. Obviously Wales isn't a problem on that side. On the subject of how people performed, think you are being harsh to some sports, if you are judging them on how they could have been expected on form. The women's rugby were not seeded to qualify from the group. So coming 7th is an over-peformance on that front. There's a separate argument about whether they should be doing better generally but that isn't related to the performance at the games. Same with table tennis - both Hursey and Pitchford lost to higher seeded players in the round you would expect them to do so. That's doing what is expected to me. Again, if we want to consider the overall health of the sport, that's a different matter. Skateboarding getting a 5 whilst mountain biking getting a 10 also seems weird. Both delivered pretty much exactly what we might have expected from them.

I dislike that Yorkshire gets its own segment but the right side of the Pennines just gets lumped into "North West".

I really want to but LA in July and August makes my pasty British body burn in anticipation.

Agreed that there are countries that would be hurt more but our total medal haul would be affected for sure. Gymnastics probably the most obvious sport where we would definitely lose medals to them.

My gut for LA is that we'll be somewhere around 50-70 medals, with a gold total somewhere between 12-25 (ie roughly what we have been at all Games since 2008!). The Aussies are bound to have a good Games there as they prepare for Brisbane and with the advantages they have in qualifying routes. The French will still be feeling some benefit from Paris, Japan perhaps less so from Tokyo. I'm not 100% convinced that the Dutch will repeat their performance here. Obviously the great unknown is when - if ever - Russia is allowed back to play. Things like quotas etc will undoubtedly come into play as well, which does make an impact. If push comes to shove, and no Russia, I think we will end up 4th in LA behind the usual 2 and the Aussies.

I think losing athletics and swimming from those champs probably makes them less appealing for a host city unfortunately. The European Games being in Turkey in 2027 are obviously going to be important as well, considering the increasing move towards them as a qualification route.