Epic Failure

Watching the Belgian men fight is only matched by watching the Dutch women do the same.

As someone who loves both League and Union equally, there's not a chance in hell of an Olympic 9s tournament happening unless Australia forced it in 2032 and then it would promptly be dropped as soon as 2036 comes around. There's more chance of flag football establishing a long term hold than 9s. 7s has its issues with marketing etc but it is a growing competitive sport in a code of rugby which is itself growing. As much as it depresses me, League is essentially dying outside of the NRL. Also, international RL matches might have better attendance than 7s, but that doesn't mean 9s would. It's not like the XV-a-side game struggles for crowds internationally!

MvdP has never been that big on MTB, he's more into cyclo-cross. My personal theory is that he and TP have sat down in recent years and agreed that they won't really cross each other too much - TP dabbles in CC but only slightly. Whereas MvdP takes the opposite approach. Works for both of them in that they get to dominate a discipline more easily. Tarling finished 6th in Dwars door Vlaanderen earlier this year, so it is possible that they believes he has a realistic shot in this as well and isn't just there to work for the team. At his age, you just never know.

No matter what one's political leanings, even a brief google search shows that the political situation in New Caledonia is more complicated than simply them requesting independence and France refusing (they have a deeply divided electorate, much akin to Northern Ireland). It's not remotely similar to what is happening in Ukraine or Israel/Palestine.

I mention the rugby simply because 1) it was the same weekend as Budapest anyway and 2) the attendance in Monaco was, frankly, pretty pathetic. The players deserved more. There must have been a football stadium somewhere in Budapest they could have stuck a couple of sets of posts up in!

Cav was never likely to be in there with the course being what it is, sadly. G is a bit more surprising, although perhaps not at his age. It's a show of faith in his compatriot Williams though. In related news, no Ganna in the Ineos Tour team, which presumably means he'll be nice and rested for the TT in Paris. Boooo.

I think that it definitely works better in some sports than others. The urban nature and ability to have the sports close together worked very well. They missed a bit of a trick not including the rugby in it, in my opinion.

Zharnel Hughes has received a medical exemption for the trials, after the injury he got in Jamaica last month. Good that he has that but not a promising sign that he's going to be relatively untested if he makes it to Paris at all.

BBC/Eurosport are the only ways I know for the UK. Aside from that it is a VPN if you can get a good stream. Canada usually has pretty good coverage. I'll be another watching through the TV/internet, getting up at silly hours in the morning. Mrs Failure has already been warned that my sleep pattern will be odd for the period of the Games!

Depending how things go, it might be better to have a thread for each day of the games rather than one big thread - as otherwise information etc can get lost quite easily in a super long thread. Obviously that would only be necessary if we were very active, which we can't know in advance. But it is worth considering. If most people are at the Games themselves they won't be online posting about them (I hope ).

I mean, that's just not true. We have pace in that team. We just didn't have pace that was obviously quicker than RSA. Besides which, pace in itself is nowhere near as important in 7s as it used to be because every team is better conditioned than they used to be. Ball handling, organisation, ability to break a line and defensive skills are arguably all more important than pure pace.

I mean 7s has *always* been a different beast. Fiji have been world beaters since I was a kid. Serevi is Mr 7s. But Fiji in 15s are only now starting to be regularly competitive in the 15s game. So being good at one doesn't automatically make you equally good in another, no matter your resources. Spain are a cracking example of a team which wouldn't get anywhere near any of the home nations in XVs. But they can be competitive in 7s. And the idea of "nabbing" League players assumes that they 1) could make the change. Not all of them can or 2) would want to. I'm happy for this to be seen as a wakeup call if the governing bodies want it to be. But this team tried its best. Its best - coupled with the way qualification fell - wasn't good enough. Getting complacent for me is assuming that we're automatically good enough, or that it should be a doddle. International sport just isn't like that.

Thinking that it should have been a doddle is exactly the kind of arrogant thinking that people often accuse English/British sports fans of. We've not been one of the best teams in 7s for several years now, so qualifying through the series was never that likely. As it is, we've lost out in one off games to Ireland and South Africa, both of whom will hope to challenge in Paris. The way the qualification system panned out this time didn't help us. Sometimes you have to accept that someone else is better than you and there's no shame in that.

Best team won. Only 3 tries conceded in the entire tournament. I don't care who their opponents were, that's amazing defence.

's defence has been outstanding in that first half.

You'd thump us but cross-Channel rugby is always super fun and emotional.

We have the quality to do it, but the way the tournament (and frankly the whole season) has played out, we're slight underdogs going into the final for me.

Meanwhile, with your other hat on @mpjmcevoy, I think Kate O'Connor might have done enough in Ratingen to get herself into the quota spots for the hept.

I can confirm after some extensively pointless number crunching that our brave B-Boy Sunni will not make it.

For Paris? About 60.

I agree that GBR were great against Tonga. I worry that Canada struggling past Chile will give RSA an even easier SF task than it could have been.

I wouldn't read too much into the QFs. Uganda are arguably a better team than Tonga right now.

Summer will be in the warm down pool by the time that 4:30 comes about.

Hey, some of us old punks remember when skateboarding was cool in the 90s!

Gorbenko went 4:34.87 at Mare Nostrum, so she's already in the range to take advantage if Grimes/Forrester don't find their 2023 form.