mpjmcevoy

Very interesting Article, not a lot of vast shocks in it, but great that she's found some happiness. She switched allegiance to Ireland from the US quietly a few years back, but I'd say the odds on her acting on it are pretty long - still, it maybe feels like a little statement of emancipation to herself, in which case, good on her.

To give some insight into how ridiculous Angharad's time was, the mixed relay that includes her, the infamous female breaststroker, is one second quicker than the four that includes Adam ****ing Peaty. It's VERY rare your quickest mixed 4 includes your female breaststroker - the slowest stroke also creates, generally the biggest 'sex' gap. But if your male stroker is relatively very weak (think USA Tokyo 2020) it can be explained. When your male stroker is Adam Peaty, backed up by Filip Nowacki, its insane.

They'll want to bring Max Morgan, I'm pretty certain; the dynamic between Peaty, Nowacki and Morgan is very important for the develpment of the two youngsters. I would imagine Shephard will be brought for 4 x 2 heat experience too; the depth in GB200 is ungodley...once you bring back Dean, there's a genuine argument the nearest european competitor to GBR 4 x 200 (say Richards, Guy, Scott, McMillan) would be GBR2 (Dean, Shephard, Max Litchfield, Jones)! Blocksidge n the other hand has clearly plateaed, and might be better off doing a Commie/Euro jr double

Between Toprak, Nairne Levy and obviously Reid, it seems that we've maybe overachieved given what looked like a soft team on entry. Wasn't expecting much of anything, quietly pleased at this

The GB men's breaststroke production line looks, once again, in fine order - even during the darker years for GB swimming, All the way back to Wilkie, Goodhew, Moorehouse and Gillingham, Gibson and Mew, Jamieson, Murdoch and Wilby, GB seemed to be able to churn out 'strokers. Despite Peaty's dominance clearly the seed remains strong.

The logic is financial, as it was back in the day for the dreadful UKA selection system. Once that is understood, all else follows entirely logically.

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.