mpjmcevoy

Super runner, good guy, sadly never entirely recovered from ripping his leg to shreds in the act of going sub 10, but as you say a key relay man for the better part of a decade, and a European and World Champion, and a reminder that talent doesn't always come in obvious looking boxes -a breakthrough sprint athlete for many of middle eastern and north african heritage.

Joking aside, apparently discussions are ongoing with ECB and CI for some kind of euro 6 Nations in T20 cricket - apparently the idea at this point is automatic qualification for England, Ireland, Scotland and the Netherlands, while the final two places will be decided at a Tri-series in which Italy will be the only automatic entry, more or less guarnteeing Italy entry - from there, its two parallel Tri series with a finals day. Apparently inspired by the rise of Nepal and the Asia Cup, English cricket think they can make a short sharp tournament of this sort financially viable, as it would involve only three T20 games over 5 days in the early season, and they could rest the biggest players while getting some goodwill from ICC - previously they had not shown interest in a comp the Scots and Dutch have always wanted.

Hey, no fair. It's a rugby monolith too!

And this with relatively small fields, so lots of nations with no skin in the game.

It is by far the biggest ticket sales of any sport at the Olympics - even 70% full stadia means about 58 matches with 30-40,000 odd crowds - even the athletics rarely sells that many tickets (usually across 18 sessions full to the brim, the equivalent of about 36 matches of 30-40,000.) and no sport other than track and field comes close. Moreover, it tends to create an easy win for 'spreading' the Olympic bounty, and rarely requires any meaningful new build, unlike Athletics. You are talking, when you add in VIp ticket sales and the usual venue add ons, generating revenue in the $200-300 million range - Revenue which, unlike most of the money from the Games (TV rights, sponsorship, branded merch), goes to the host organiser, not the IOC. The thing about being an Olympic fanatic is that we often get here precisely because we rejected to some extent or other the overwhelming soccer culture that exists everywhere outside North america and the antipodes. So we aren't Olympic football's target audience. Casual fans who like football - of whom there are a LOT - are. I do wonder, in all sincerity, if Brisbane might be better doing this with cricket than soccer - or if LA would have been better doing it with baseball.

The women's top 50 is so crammed with athletes from the same five nations that it is not inconceivable they are unable to fill the full quota from the top 50, in which case a third double spot would open up between USA/BEL/GBR

That women's pursuit team looks brutally fast. Batter you over the head into submission brutal, perhaps not seen since the early Trott-Rowsell days The 4 minute barrier could be on borrowed time. The two British women sprinters Finucane and Caldwell also look pretty ominous, indeed the whole women's sprint team looks in some shape and with some depth to get that result without Finucane Work to do for the British men's teams, but they won't be unhappy either, not to mention Joe Truman's unexpected Kilo win.

The rankings look likely to give two spots each in the men's side to Egypt (2nd athlete at 3) and GB (second athlete at 9). the nearest contender after that is France and both Egypt and GB have plenty of contenders after their respective number 2 but before France's umber 2 Women's side looks a bit more of a battle, with Egypt again likely to provide 2, and then a fight between USA, GBR and BEL for the other lucky double spot. That said, so dominant are the Egyptians, Americans and Brits, that failing to find all the contenders in the top 50 is entirely plausible, possibly opening a third 'double' spot.

I think there was a feeling before the obstacle course was introduced that really, really solid endurance runners were starting to dominate - in Triathlon you might call it the Alex Yee conundrum. Personally, I don't mind at all if the 'martial' elements are reemphasised as that is the real 'soul' of the sport - Triathlon, Marathon and Road cycing are there for genuine endurace, MP is in some senses a 'soldiery' test - one reason I thought Judo might have been a better addition than the obstacle course. But placing a higher emphasis on the fight bits over the flight bits seems a legitimate idea - though it should also increase the X-country nature of the run so that the test of a fresh shooter at the beginning is rather different from the test of a knackered one at the end. I quite like the artificial hill in rio.

Wth Hepwort's worth on rings, I think tulloch is no longer a required get out of jail free card. Equally, GBR are going through an unusual moment of being a bit weak on pommel. finally, if Whitlock can get himself into anything like the 2020 zone and do three clean routines, he remains a major medal chance, and boosts the team medal chances. Hall was a fabulous swiss army knife of a gymnast, but again the trio of Jarman, Hepworth and Fraser probably cover your AA/Swiss army knife needs. Haven't seen enough of Yolshin-Cash yet to really draw conclusions. I'd say Jarmin, Hepworth, Whitehouse, Fraser and a.n. other is about right On the girls side, it's kind of tragic what's happened the Gadirova's in terms of injury - like Ellie D, there's a hint of what might have been, even as they have had a great career.

Looks like Weston, if he gets fit, might be a very good bet indeed on this track. Stoeker was very good in the team later on, and Wyatt upped his level.

North american cup incorporating Pan American Champs are running at same weekend, I think.

Exactly the other example I thought of. I genuinely think there's an issue with those two sports - in Diving the rise of GB prevented somewhat embarrassing back to back to back clean sweeps; they would be well advised imho to seek to add mixed synchro, team and high dive events, which could be done faguely cleaply with relatively little rise in total quota (14 fr the high dive - the rest could be found from existing competitors), and uses only another reasonably cheap venue (Basically scaffolding with wrap, a big pool which you can reuse, and temp seating near the beach) - given the increase in beach based events - volleyball, but more so coastal rowing and beach sprint canoe, and possibly triathlon and open water swimming, there's no harm adding a nice spectacular high dive event with about 24 quotas total (12+12) - the advantage being the Chinese are not so into high dive so it automatically jazzes up your medal table - in a way its a pity Gymnastics aren't having a beach based flying rings competition which has a long Venice Beach tradition. Don't know how we fix Table tennis, truth be told - it is simply 'their' game, in a way not even diving is - they have tables in railways stations and everything.

There are only 10 gold medals. A spread of 6 winners i frankly pretty good - you should try Diving...

But certainly a dope. Well, he apparently has earned a lot of money from his adult career, so perhaps that's the gamble he chose. Interesting that he originally told a bit of a fib about what he was being investigated for - he claimed it was his adult site content, but it turned out it was leaking some of that content on a more mainstream social media site, on an account linking to Gb Canoeing. It's a long way from cheeky rugby calendars with carefully placed balls...