Epic Failure

Shooting - at least from my experience - is one of the more unpredictable of sports with tight margins and very much relies on 'form on the day'. We saw that the other month with Bargeron - the world #83 - getting a spot in the rifle. Is it disappointing? Sure. But I don't agree that it should have been as assured as you say that it should.

Most of the teams have not yet been announced because of the Q deadline and with the proximity to the Olympics impacting which athletes are interested in the Euros. The team is due to be announced on Tuesday I believe.

well, to use the vernacular of the youth of my day, that all went Pete Tong....

[hide] *"Double-the-points" distributed as follow: Each user will have 3 during the Knockout Stage - From Quarterfinals to Finals. Each user will have to mark their matches with "Double-the-points" with an "*". Knockout Stage May 23rd - May 26th, 2024 4 Nations, the Winners of each Semifinal will qualify for the Final. The Losers of each Semifinal will play the Third-Place Match. Semifinals Date & Time (GMT +2) Nation 1 T1 T2 Nation 2 May 25th 2024 h. 14:20 Sweden 2 Czechia May 25th 2024 h. 18:20 Canada 2 Switzerland [/hide]

It's events like that where common sense should come into play. If there's less than 20 swimmers qualified in any situation (ie A cut, B cut or universality) when the final numbers are crunched, just adjust the schedule so the event has only heats and final. The event won't be ruined if that happens.

That'll teach you to be hopeful Austria.

*"Double-the-points" distributed as follow: Each user will have 3 during the Knockout Stage - From Quarterfinals to Finals. Each user will have to mark their matches with "Double-the-points" with an "*". Knockout Stage May 23rd - May 26th, 2024 8 Nations, the Winners of each Quarterfinal will qualify for the Semifinals. Quarterfinals Date & Time (GMT +2) Nation 1 T1 T2 Nation 2 May 23rd 2024 h. 16:20 Canada 2* Slovakia May 23rd 2024 h. 16:20 Switzerland 2 Germany May 23rd 2024 h. 20:20 Sweden 3* Finland May 23rd 2024 h. 20:20 United States 1 Czechia

Joking aside, always the likely result. We're in that annoying bubble where we're good enough to win promotion but not really good enough to ever stay up.

Of course, if the Jamaican women's sprinters have been hiding their form, that 100m sweep becomes plausible again...

Men's shot is as good a chance as any (by which I mean it is still very, very unlikely) - Fabbri of Italy has the WL but then you have the US trio of Crouser, Kovacs and Otterdahl behind him in the rankings. You would expect two of them (Crouser and Kovacs) to be on the podium. Obviously Tom Walsh would likely have something to say about it as well.

She's got, what between 10-11 weeks until the BMX in Paris? Obviously never a guarantee but I've heard of cyclists being back on the bike within a month and fully recovered within 6-8 weeks. So yeah, you would think she's still in with a decent shot. Especially considering there's no obvious like-for-like replacement, so you imagine they will give her every opportunity to get fit. Not overly worried right now about her participation.

Ah, cycling's favourite injury strikes again.

Just caught up with the Lead final for the women. Erin stepped up with her best performance of the weekend in that discipline to wrap up 3rd place. An outstanding performance when you think where she came in ranked. She's given herself a great chance of qualifying for Paris in Budapest.

True, although there is some overlap. There is consistency between how they are approaching selection for the Olympics (especially in regards to those with 'quota' places) and how they are approach selection to other Champs, where the funding is a more direct issue. So the financial issues do still indirectly influence Olympic selection. Put simply, I'm willing to bet that there will be somewhere in the region of 10-15 British athletes who would go this summer if WA had their way and we used the quota system without question, but who won't get nominated by UKA. That's the indirect impact of the budget tightening. But, again, it's justified as "raising standards".

I mean, UK Athletics have been fairly open about the fact that they are broke. So this is one example where they absolutely *are* trying to...streamline budgets. They just use the 'raising standards' excuse.

Keith has the OQT already and more importantly was inside the UK 'B' time here. Dever only has the 'B' time - from March - and was just outside it. That's the difference re form. I agree that the current form criteria is a bit vague. But I'm guessing it is there so the selectors aren't forced to pick someone who met the time once last summer and then hasn't got near it since. So I reckon Keith is completely safe - I don't think there's any criteria they could use to not select her. Dever is *probably* safe, but doesn't have quite the certainty yet. It depends how mean the selectors are feeling. Obviously, as you say, the results from the trials will impact things as well, as will results elsewhere. The other complicating factor in the 10000 is the quota places set aside for cross country runners. They aren't always accepted so that can impact the number of spots that might be available for quotas as well.

Men's bouldering for the final just finished. Hamish (or Jumpy-B Hamish as @mpjmcevoy would obviously prefer he be known) finished it in 3rd place in a low scoring round with 43.8 and one top. There were only 5 tops total and only Adam Ondra got more than 1. Lead in about 30 mins.

So round up of GBR athletes of note so far this weekend. These are *far* from the only GBR athletes competing - these were the ones that stood out to me, either as good times or athletes who might be in contention for Paris or Rome this summer: LA 400m - Ohuruogu - 51.67 1500m - Fogg - 3:35.82 800m - Wightman - 1:44.10 (OQT), Botterill 1:45.91, Langford 1:46.18 1500m - Snowden - 4:00.89 (OQT) (last night) 800m - Sharman-Newell - 1:45.5 3000m SC - Bird - 9.32.95 3000m SC - Seddon - 8:20.77 (PB) 5000m - Atkin - 12:54.66 (PB, OQT) 5000m - Nuttall - 14:57.91 (PB) Wetzler 100m - Edoburen - 10.24 (+1.0) 100m - Henry - 11.44 (+1.4) Chorzow 100m - NMB - 10.25 (+0.1) 100m - Lansiquot - 11.24 (-0.1) 200m - NMB - 20.54 (+0.8) Quainoo 20.84 200m - Hunt - 22.85 (0.0) 400m - La Nielsen - 51.47, Pipi 52.77 800m - Baker 2:00.16 1500m - Reekie - 4:02.57 400m H - Li Nielsen - 54.73 (=PB, OQT) Shot - Lincoln - 20.75 Andujar 100m - Efoloko - 10.35 (+0.4), Morgan-Harrison 10.41 800m - G Bell - 1:59.93 (PB) Gotzis Day 1 Pawlett - 3820pts - 13.64 (PB) - 1.71 - 14.39 (PB) - 23.55 (PB) Smith - 3607pts - 13:38 (PB)- 1.77 - 11.89 - 24.39 (PB) Mills - 3216pts - 14.82 - 1.68 - 12.86 - 25.94 Highgate - Night of the 10000m PBs Paddy Dever finished second in 27:23.88. He has the British QT from March but faces an anxious wait to see if he will get a quota spot and, if he did, whether UK Athletics would accept it. Could fall foul of the "current form" criteria, as that indicates athletes have to perform in April-June this year. Will hopefully at least have a place in Rome for the Euros, as could a couple of the guys behind him such as Rory Leonard and Charlie Hicks. On the women's side, no such drama. Megan Keith won the race in 31:03.02. She already had the OQT from March, but this satisfies the 'current form' criteria. So she's on the train to Paris if she wants to be. Jess Warner-Judd behind her has a more anxious wait. She's in a quota spot and has the GBR Q from last year. But, like Dever, might fall foul of the 'current form' stipulation. And breathe....that's enough for today.

Shriever had a poor start but was then badly baulked by Pajon going down right in front of her. It killed any momentum she had. Even still, she was still in with a shout of 4th on the final straight but overcooked it. But she was only about 2-3m behind the group when she went down, not 10m!

The Rankings. 1 place will go here to the highest placed NOC who doesn't already qualify through the rankings, or who hasn't qualified at one of the continental champs/last year's WC.

The discussion about the B cut vs 'relay only' is an interesting one. I can see both sides of the argument. I get that it seems unfair for one B cut to be allowed to take part and others not. But she'll be there for the relay anyway, so it's not like she would be depriving anyone of a place. But then the 'relay only' designation means nothing if you start letting people in who don't have the Q. It's a tough one. Just another example of the sometimes perplexing and sometimes frustrating qualification systems for the Olympics!

Another solid bouldering round by Erin and Hamish. Hamish had 2 tops and sits 4th with 64.6. Erin had 3 tops and sits 6th with 84.6. The question is whether they can match that performance in lead. Molly had a tougher day and sits 14th with 43.4. She'll hope for a better time in lead. Lead section starts in about an hour. Top 8 get through to the final.

I doubt DAS will do the 400m relay. Unless she's fallen out with the 4x1 team then that would clash with the women's 4x4. And the mixed clashes with the 100m. Given Dina's injury issues in recent years, it's probably a bit too risky.

Worthington just doesn't look confident compared to her best. Whether it is a fitness thing or something psychological, something just seems...off.

It's definitely 2 per nation max. I think someone asked about this earlier, but I don't think Reilly can double qualify us. If I'm reading the qualification docs correctly (not guaranteed), if Reilly qualifies by name here, the place he got at the Worlds would be reassigned to an NOC that hadn't yet qualified. I could be misreading it though, so don't quote me on that.