clemsonbeav

After the first group stage is done in the Women's competition, this is how things are:
 
Group 1 and 2 are for seeding purposes only and start tomorrow. All 8 teams qualify for the Round of 32 main draw.
 
Group 1:     
Group 2:     
 
Then, we had 14 groups from 3 to 16. All group winners qualify for the main draw.
 
Group Winners:                
 
And, the 6 best runner-ups also qualify directly.
 
Best 6:       
 
And, for the other 8 runner-ups, they have to play a single elimination match, which starts in an hour, where the winner qualify and the loser is eliminated.
 
 v
 v
 v  
 v  
 
Finally, the following teams are eliminated.
 
Eliminated:                             
 
Round of 32 starts May 4.

After the first group stage is done in the Men's competition, this is how things are:
 
Group 1 and 2 are for seeding purposes only and start tomorrow. All 8 teams qualify for the Round of 32 main draw.
 
Group 1:     
Group 2:     
 
Then, we had 14 groups from 3 to 16. All group winners qualify for the main draw.
 
Group Winners:               
 
And, the 6 best runner-ups also qualify directly.
 
Best 6:      
 
And, for the other 8 runner-ups, they have to play a single elimination match, which starts in an hour, where the winner qualify and the loser is eliminated.
 
 v  
 v
 v  
 v  
 
Finally, the following teams are eliminated.
 
Eliminated:                             
 
Round of 32 starts May 4.

...and we picked up a medal in both of those comps.  Congrats to Aaron William for snagging Silver, and Mary Theisen-Lappen for taking home bronze.
 
6 Golds
4 Silvers
4 Bronzes
 
1st overall!
 
I'm pretty sure we medalled in every comp we entered.   
 
Well done, Team!  

More hardware for us... Kolbi Ferguson in M -110 took home silver and Katelyn Witte took home bronze in W -86.  
 
Two more comps to go!

Bobby Finke lost the 1500 to Will Mulgrew...one to watch!

USA cleaning up.
 
We didn't take gold in M -88, but that's because Yeison López  is an absolute beast...won silver to Karlos Nasar  in Paris, and won gold here by 48 kg.  (Yes, 48 kg...more than 10% more weight than silver.) We did win Silver and Bronze, though.  Congrats Hutton Boles and Brandon Victorian!  The closest class in LA28 will be 85 (Lopez competed at -89 in Paris), so either these guys will have to cut, or bulk up to 95, the next class up.
 
And meanwhile for the ladies, Mattie Rogers took Gold in W -77kg.
 
Go Team  

Fifth gold for !  Olivia Reeves, gold medalist also in Paris and the past two WCh.   She's a beast!  Estelle Rohr also participated, finishing 8th in C&J, and not registering a total in Snatch.

And Caden Cahoy also walked away with Gold for the M -79.  He tried for the WR in the C&J, but didn't manage.  Still got the PanAm record, though.  We had a second competitor Eddie Ginnan in this weight class, and he finished 5th.

Another day, another gold!  Sophia Shaft in -63.  (Unfortunately not an Olympic category...would have to go down to 61 or up to 69.)

Awesome...glad they were able to figure that out.

It'll be streamed here https://www.youtube.com/@SwimSwamTV/streams

Looking forward to this competition starting tomorrow! Will be nice to see some other countries participate. USA women start with Namibia tomorrow.

Oops. I'll eat my words. Hampton came in second. But valiant effort!

Allyson Felix will return to competition in 2027 with an eye on LA28!!
 
More info here:
https://www.nbcsports.com/olympics/news/allyson-felix-comeback-la-2028
 
https://www.nbcsports.com/olympics/news/allyson-felix-track-comeback-2028

We're two for two in the PanAms, and I'm going to go ahead and call that we're going to win this next one.
 
Congrats to Gabe Chhum and Miranda Ulrey.  Gabe was in the -60 category and won Gold.  Unfortunately for Gabe's Olympic hopes, the lowest category in 2028 is -65, which is the same category that Hampton Morris is in.  Hampton (who is about to compete now) won bronze in 2024 Paris and 2025 WCh in .
 
Miranda apparently has dropped a few kgs, and is still lifting similarly.  Her total today was a new PanAm Record (and record in each individual category), and it would have won gold in Paris 2024.  Looking forward to seeing more from her in future comps!
 
Hampton coming up now!

The recent US Open helped form our Greco-Roman World Team.  If you want to know more, click here: https://www.themat.com/news/2026/april/25/bey-melelashvili-young-schultz-round-out-u-s-greco-roman-world-team

Congrats to Nelly Korda for winning the Chevron Cup in Houston! 

Compiling posts from USA Cycling's Facebook from the three days:
 
Team USA kicked off racing at the UCI Track World Cup in Nilai, Malaysia!
The Men’s Team Pursuit got things rolling, qualifying 6th with a 3:55. They backed it up with another consistent ride in the First Round against Switzerland, matching their time but just missing out on the medal rounds to finish 8th overall.
In the Women’s Team Sprint, the squad also qualified 6th to move on to the First Round, where they faced Mexico. They came out fast, going green through the first three splits, but were edged out by 0.790.
In the Elimination races, Grant Koontz put together a strong ride to take 6th in the men’s race, while 18-year-old Emma Jimenez Palos finished 10th in the women’s event.
 
***
 
Day 2 at the UCI Track World Cup in Nilai, Malaysia
Grant Koontz took on the Omnium. He was 4th in both the Scratch and Tempo races. After a 10th-place finish in the Elimination, it all came down to the Points Race. Starting with 90 points in 5th, he went all in and added 37 more, finishing 2nd overall, just one point off the win.
Haley Yoslov and Kayla Hankins were on the track for the sprint tournament, both throwing down fast qualifying times (10.732 and 10.786). They ended up facing each other in the Round of 16, with Yoslov advancing. She ran into the reigning World Champion in the next round, ultimately finishing 15th.
Dalton Walters took on the Men’s Keirin, winning his First Round repechage to keep moving on. He went through to the Second Round repechage and wrapped up his day in 21st, marking one of his strongest Keirin results to date.
Bethany Ingram and Emma Jimenez Palos lined up for the Women’s Madison, improving on last weekend’s performance with a solid 12th place finish.
 
***
 
Closing out racing in Nilai, Malaysia at the UCI Track World Cup!
McKenna McKee and Kayla Hankins both came out flying in the Keirin, putting down fast rides in the First Round to automatically advance. McKee just missed moving on from the Second Round by 0.4, while Hankins’ day wrapped there as well, but both walking away with career-best results, finishing 15th and 17th.
In the Men’s Sprint, Dalton Walters qualified 23rd and lined up for the First Round, coming up just short of advancing (+0.516) to finish 24th overall.
Bethany Ingram had a steady ride across the Omnium. After the Scratch, Tempo, Elimination, and Points races, she ultimately finishing 17th overall.
In the Men’s Madison, Graeme Frislie and Peter Moore scored 37 points to take 8th.

The Kentucky Three Day Event just concluded with many of the world's top eventers.  The competition concluded with William Coleman winning, making him the National Champion of Eventing for .  Caroline Pamukcu (the one I met!) nabbed silver.
 
Also this weekend, they had a 5* Jumping contest, with Kent Farrington winning here, too!

Week 17
 
Tennis finished their competition in Madrid .  (Our guys aren't doing so hot, but we do have a lady or two still in.) 
 
PanAms in Weightlifting are happening this week in .  Stream live on PanAmPesas'  YouTube.
 
We have the opening week of a two-week Table Tennis competition in London ...the ITTF World Team Championships.  Should be fun!  We have to make it out of the opening pool to make it in the knockouts.  I know our team isn't the best, but I have high hopes for making it to the knockouts.  I'm sure this will be live on ITTF's YouTube. 
 
Some of our men will be doing some Road Cycling in the Tour de Romandie  this week, and perhaps some will be in Frankfurt  on Friday.
 
We've got another elite Beach Volleyball competition in Brasilia  .
 
We've got some great Swimming this week in the Fort Lauderdale Open .  Lots of Olympians here.  I imagine this will be on TV somewhere...can't find info at this moment.
 
And lots more aquatics... Artistic Swimming in , Open Water Swimming in  , Women's Water Polo in , and Diving in .
 
We've got Fencing in  (foil - M/W, Team/Indiv), and in  (sabre - M/W indiv). (fencingtv.com)
 
Mountain Bike gets underway in  as well. (Unsure of streaming)
 
We've got Judo in  (that's Tajikistan). (Life on judotv.com)
 
3x3 Basketball will be going on in  for our men and women. (FIBA 3x3 YouTube)
 
Athletics has the Relay Championships in .  I imagine this will be on Peacock.
 
Sport Climbing has a North American Boulder cup, but more exciting is the first World Climbing series in Keqiao  (Boulder).  (WC Youtube)
 
BMX Racing supposedly has a PanAm championship this week...still digging up details on that.
 
And kicking off this coming weekend and continuing on next week is more Surfing, Shooting (Shotgun), and Road Cycling (La Vuelta Femenina).
 
So much going on!
 

Today marks the start of the first MTB qualification period, with the ranking set to run for about two years. The top 8 nations will each earn 2 Olympic quota spots.
This weekend, the World Cup circuit will also kick off, with the opening round in YongPyong, South Korea.

New sub-2-hour WR for the Men's Marathon.  Congrats Sabastian Sawe   for your success in London today (1:59:30), and HT to Yomif Kejelcha  who also went sub-2:00:00, and Jacob Kiplimo  who finished third and also under the previous WR pace!
 
https://www.nbcsports.com/olympics/news/sabastian-sawe-marathon-world-record-london-two-hours

A great weekend in the Hong Kong velodrome and will definitely be back for next year's event which will count towards Olympic qualification. The crashes are spectacular - the noise reverberates across the track - and the crowd can get so close to the action. 
 
If this weekend's results are anything to go by, the traditional cycling nations wont have it their own way going into LA. Was impressed by a couple of the  riders across both their sprint and endurance teams whilst the  women's sprinters could be ones to watch. 
 
Overall, it was a successful weekend for both the  and  teams - the Dutch Men's Madison team were outstanding, whilst Matthew Richardson and Emma Finucane have amazing turn of speed. 
 
Couple of (poor quality) pics of the  v  grudge match in the men's sprint semifinals:
 
 
and the kerin:
 
 
 

A bit of a mixed session for  GB.
 
The Women's Team Pursuit blew up in the final and were lucky to avoid the overlap. Worth saying the GB were the only medalist that didn't make use of their substitute rider - probably not surprising given the substitute was Lauren Bell. Still a second-tier team was good enough to take a silver.
 
The Men's Team Pursuit had a nightmare day. Having crashed in the first qualifying run, they did enough on the rerun to get to the 1st round where they did step up and qualify for the bronze medal match. They kept it close against China for the first half before fading pretty badly to finish 4th.
 
I was a bit surprised that the Women's Team Sprint were beaten by China. They were leading by 0.2 seconds after Bell and Finucane had completed their laps but it looked like Parris-Smith was just way too far back.
 
The standout was the Men's Team Sprint. I thought they were going to have to settle for the silver but somehow managed to pull it out of the bag in the final lap. 
 

 

 
I definitely picked the wrong section of the crowd though - caught between two competing locals. One vocally anti-China, accusing them of cheating and booing every time they were on the track. At one point he was singing God Save the King and Rule Britannia. In the end he was asked to leave. 
 
Biggest cheer of the night was for  Lee Sze Wing's silver in the elimination race.