Epic Failure

Until the team is announced I wouldn't treat any of those articles as being anything more than an expression of interest. Athletes had to let UKA know by 3rd May if they were interested. The selection meeting is set for tomorrow. I wouldn't be surprised to see any the names mentioned there but neither would I be shocked if some of them had last minute changes of heart.

*shakes hands of other medalists, followed by a quick skate around the ice thanking the fans*

Seeing G and Cav coming to the end of their careers just makes me remember how old I'm getting.

In fairness, GBR never confirm ahead of time who is swimming what. Just that they are on the team. So, in a very technical sense, not even Adam Peaty has been picked for the individual yet. Angharad was always likely to get that individual swim given that she's the only British female breaststroker there, she had the A cut anyway and she isn't likely to have a heavy schedule. But this performance makes it an almost certainty. Puts her just inside the top 20 ever and if she can repeat it in Paris would make her a threat for a final place. Great swim.

[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 Third-Place Match Date & Time (GMT +2) Nation 1 T1 T2 Nation 2 May 26th 2024 h. 15:20 Sweden 2 Canada Final Date & Time (GMT +2) Nation 1 T1 T2 Nation 2 May 26th 2024 h. 20:20 Switzerland 2* Czechia [/hide]

The cat is not so much amongst the pigeons as it is enjoying a splendid 3 course meal provided by a particularly plump speckled pigeon!

Only a +2.5 wind. With that time, I was expecting something closer to a +4 wind! That roughly translates to about 9.93 in no wind. That's super impressive.

I mean it's definitely frustrating. I'm just not overwhelmingly surprised. I'm just looking at the rankings in the 4 shotgun events. The women's trap is the only one where the top 10 have all qualified. The women's skeet 6, 8 and 9 haven't qualified. Men's trap 6, 7 and 10. Men's skeet 4, 6 and 9. It just seems a sport where relatively high ranking people miss the games quite often.

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.