Epic Failure

It's also the fact that all the Olympic qualification is riding on this one event. No continental qualification. So everyone is nervously excited about this.

No excuses for with that draw. That first heat looks like an absolutely dog fight.

Never predict that a British relay team will get around safely. A dropped baton is always a reasonable bet.

That's more like it from

It's a Birmingham University team from a meet in Philadelphia according to WA.

The WA website has crashed due to traffic at pretty much every large meet in the last few years. It's not great.

It's very British that the first time the system moves away from fast times to just auto qualifiers we fall foul of it.

The crowds in Lyon this weekend have been outstanding. Looking forward to similar in Glasgow and Berlin over the summer.

Unless they are waaaay off the back, I'd doubt it. It's the first race of the weekend so they are freshest. And you never know what might happen in front of you even in a 4x4 (see Bol tripping and the US women exchanging outside the zone just from last summer). If they were going to take that chance, better to do it in race 2 tonight in the hope you are fresher tomorrow.

If anyone knows how they are going to work out the seeding for the heats on day 2 (or, indeed, how they worked out the seeding for the heats on day 1), I'd love to know. Worth noting, in case it hasn't already been mentioned, that there's 2 spots in each relay saved for the fastest time for teams that don't qualify this weekend. So let's all hope the US and Jamaican teams get their batons around safely, so that they don't hog those spots.

I'm internally trying to work out how they came up with the draws for the first round and even more fascinated how they are going to do the draw for round 2, given the stakes. I'd agree that none of the draws are particularly scary, for either GBR or Ireland. More than anything, I have the inevitable baton worries that come with the sprint relays especially. It'll be interesting to see who lines up for what - in theory Paulino is down only for the mixed 4x4 for the Dominican Republic, which would likely make Ireland's job in the women's 4x4 easier if that were the case. But I trust those entry lists about as far as I can throw them.

Start lists for day 1 heats published - https://worldathletics.org/competiti...as24/timetable GBR has the following: MX 4x4 - Heat 3 - , , , , , , , W 4x1 - Heat 4 - , , , , , , , M 4x1 - Heat 2 - , , , , , , , W 4x4 - Heat 2 - , , , , , , M 4x4 - Heat 3 - , , , , , , ,

it was heats and repechage originally, I think. Clearly repechage was too big a word for World Athletics to deal with, hence the change.

They had 29 in Tokyo, so whilst an increase, it's not that crazy. The jump from 10 in Rio to 29 in Tokyo was much bigger. But let's be honest here - the IOC is always going to support this because it makes them look good, so to speak. It's at least 50% pure politics.

Yup. We're talking about the 9th highest funded sport currently, our 4th most successful sport in Tokyo, and GBR's 6th most successful sport in terms of total medals won at all Olympics. It's just not remotely feasible that it would go from where it is down to nothing.

I would very much doubt that. Cuts, sure. But I can't see a situation where Boxing goes from its current level of funding to zero.

Jeff Petry and Lucas Raymond both confirmed I believe (if Michigan reporting is accurate). Ray-Ray was already likely, just had to work out insurance. Which I believe is the same situation for Seider.

Eh. I think that if medals are not reached that pressure would exist anyway. GBR have won at least 3 medals at each of the last 4 Games in Boxing. If they don't match that I'm sure the pressure will be intense.

Purely on past pedigree and the like, it is probably the right choice for a selector to make, especially given how important medals are to future funding. But obviously the optics etc are not good.

Lol. Good spot. And that one is definitely on them. They had both European champs in aquatics and athletics but I removed them as they probably have limited impact on the Olympic team (whilst obviously being interesting in themselves).

This list is 99% taken from the Team GB website (so any errors or omissions are their fault not mine ) Women’s Gymnastics European Championships: Rimini, 2-5 May Rowing European Championships, Szeged, 3-5 May Athletics: World Relays, Bahamas, 4-5 May BMX Racing World Championships, Rock Hill, 12-18 May Canoe Slalom European Championships, Ljubljana, 15-19 May Shotgun Shooting European Championships, Lonato, 15-27 May Urban Sports - Olympic Qualifier Series: Shanghai, 16-19 May Rowing: Last Chance Regatta, Lucerne, 19-21 May Boxing: World Qualification Tournament 2, Bangkok, 23 May - 5 June Modern Pentathlon World Championships: Zhengzhou, 10-16 June Urban Sports - Olympic Qualifier Series: Budapest, 20-23 June Rugby Sevens: Final Olympic Qualification Tournament, Monaco, 21-23 June Athletics - UK Athletics Championships, Manchester, 29-30 June Looks like the World Relays will be on the red button/online on the Beeb - https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/m001z4vv

Jump to the race that starts about 47 minutes into this. And pay close attention to the breaststroke leg.

Looking at the qualification doc - https://stillmed.olympics.com/media/Documents/Olympic-Games/Paris-2024/Paris2024-QS-Canoe-Slalom.pdf point B.2.3 says that "the athlete must compete in the event that the NOC received their qualification quota". So to me, that reads that unless a country gets a direct quota in the KX at the qualifier (there are 3 spots each for men and women), they have to be selected and take part in either the K or C. And then, if selected in one of those, they can take part in the KX as well. They can't just take part in the KX without being selected in one of the others. And if they are selected in one of the others, that would prevent a second competitor from that NOC being in that event obviously. So the only way that someone could be in the KX but not the others would be if they got a direct KX quota spot. I could be reading that wrong, however. It's not clear.

Yeah, I'd concur with that right now. Whilst the 100m/200m has been impressive, she would have to find the time she did this weekend in much stiller air to likely challenge the 100m podium. And in the 200m, she would probably need to lose something close to 0.4 as a minimum from her PB to get on that podium. Her 49.20 400m PB is still the most impressive run she's got under her belt for me. That time in itself is already podium worthy.

The system isn't good for individual fencers, I agree. But even if it was entirely in favour of individual fencers, she would still, at best, be the 24th ranked athlete out of 34 (assuming 3 per nation above her). So I think she's somewhat unfortunate, but I wouldn't go so far as very unfortunate - we're not talking about a top 10 athlete here missing out.