mpjmcevoy

Sadly, this decline has been a long time coming - I think coming together as 'one team', far from focusiing resources, has made the team an orphan that none of the home nations care that much about - not unlike olympic soccer. Even now, embarrassment aside, losts of GB fans will just shrug - "it's only sevens". Twitter was full of that last night, 'purists' more interested in the money spinning friendly between RSA and Wales than either the URC league grand final or the Sevens Olympic qualifier, all but wishing sevens dead and out of the Games. Couldn't make it up. Watch the four times 15s RWC winners reaction to sneaking into the Olympics this afternoon (or the rather delightful Chinese women), or the despondency of the gallant Kenyan's, and explain how the Olympics don't matter. Consider the road to Hell and Back Irish rugby took to create plausible sevens teams from nothing, or Hugo Keenan opting out of 15s for the summer...or DuPont, the greatest player in the world, temporarily abandoning 15s for pursuing home glory in the format.

One of the advantage the 'Commonwealth' team sports have is spread - usually at least one power on each continent, which is handy for Olympics, and in most cases some non CW countries have at least soemwhat taken to it - the Latins in Rugby (in which I include Georgia), the Dutch in Cricket etc

Overall, pretty good outting, couple of frustrating near misses, 1 of which may still 'come in'. Reilly and, probably, Worthington in. Jones very unlucky, but he's probably gone. Lily Strachan has a better chance, I think. GBR will not be involved in Breaking, which is a good result from my window, Elsewhere, Tom Pidcock once more tore the legs clean off his rivals on the MTB, and a strong show from Evie Richards. GBR have reached the men's 7's final, though I think it's South Africa's to lose. Crunching the numbers last night in the tennis, The first women's pair are in - there is no way to create enough combinations to evict them, but Dart is on the bubble twice over; on the mens side injuries to both Evans and Murray raise the peculiar question of whether it might be better - if it's still possible - to swap them out for Murray Sr and Glasspool who I think would have the numbers to get a doubles space. Oh, and GBR table tennis paralympians picked up a pair of bipartite invitations.

Well, looks like he's an Olympian now. And in a 'yuf' sport, no less.

Didn't you just die a little inside writing that? You're a hero, my man.

I think there's an anti-biotic for that.

How many cm has she put on this year alone - she's gone from emerging talent to world star in the blink of an eye! Just checked. She has gone world #7 ALL-TIME!!

"on form" is rather a calm way of saying "sweet mothering jesus!"

Amazing how many of the brits have taken, or just missed, the final spot in these comps - likely to be first reserve in 3, scraping in in another two.

She's in no sort of form, but I think she's...whisper it perhaps...a little bit older than some of her competitors. She'll always be the first Olympic champ though. She can retire on that, frankly.

I think so, she at worst 13th, but with thee guaranteed reallocations.

By my calculation, the lowest he can finsih, techncially is 11th BUT that is only if ALL three Frenchies finsih above him, and since they can only claim 2 spots max AND would cough up the Host spot, I think he;s in. Erin is of course in. With Molly, I think the situation is very complicated, I THINK, I can be corrected. 1. All 8 finalists bar Ragora of Italy are guaranteed to pass her tomorrow - she is less than 33 points ahead of all of of them bar rogora, who could techncailly gain 33 points, rise to 75 and be one below Molly. So Molly will finish either 12 or more likely 13 in the overall table. She needs three 'cancels' I think to be sure, 2 if Rogaro crashes and burns - lets assume she won't. Now, France already has Betone, so has coughed up the host quota, so that's 1 spot and can only claim one more. That's 1 for 'reallocation' japan and Slovenia will both have two inside the top 10, I think, certainly ahead of Molly. but Japan (Mori) and Slovenia (Gambret) already both have a quota, they can only take one more each, so they both cough up one. That's two for' reallocation' I THINK that gets us to thirteen, Molly's lowest position. I think that's enough.

For repeat offences, the bans can go up to 8 years andeven life, and bans can be extended for egregious and deliberate wrongdoing. So I admire your calculation, it's very fair, but it may imho be even a little bit too leniant. But I'll take it for starters. And for the record, I absiolutely would have wanted this done to the soviet Union and especially GDR back in the day, and quite possibly USA too. Even with all the crap we;ve seen from other countries over the years - and we've all been badly behaved whether its BALCO in the US, British Cycling, Italian EPO, Dutch cyclists going EPO hardcore, or Irish swimmers growing chemically induced fins, what Russia has done is one step beyond - indeed, rather a lot of steps beyond - even Kenya today, which is obviously an utter disaster, is not in that league yet.

I don't think that's right CB

Meanwhile Erin McNeice has reached the final, and basically guaranteed a spot. And I think, at this point Molly and Harry can't finish lower than 11th, and probably have enough points for spots, but that's tighter.

Not for host reallocation

1. Russia attempted to subvert the entire Olympic movement in Sochi, from both a state and NOC level - they literally sabotaged a Games they had the privilege to host. That should have led to permanent and complete expulsion, then and there. 2. They also ran a massive state level doping scheme for a decade, and attempted to get an innocent athlete banned. Again, expulsion. 3. They broke the Olympic Truce in their invasion, the third truce they've broken. certainly suspension, better expuslion. Balarus has it hands dirty on this issue. What Hamas did, and what Israel then did, are both heniously foul in different ways. Neither is justifiable. I would not be angry if both Israel and Palestine had been excluded from this edition games. But in terms of sport, specifically Russia is far, far worse.

Indeed, I'm not sure the French could use the host option even if they gave up the OQS one - winning the OQS one seems to enxtinguish the host option altogether. So the top 6 overall at OQS get named spots, GBR have 1 - Keiren Reilly Then unrepresent continents get next : the two unnamed 2022 spaces go to Japan and australia Then unrepresented continents still get next: the first 2023 space goes to South Africa for placing 65(!) Then the remaining two 2023 go to unrepresent NOCS - thats ARG and CAN Finally the rellocated space also goes to an unreppred NOC from 2023 - LAT After that, there are two first reserves : The IOC/UCI really separate the two ways to qualify. A name reserved if one of the OQS 6 pulls out : Jones And an unnamed reserve if ARG, CAN or LAT, or most likely RSA pull out, thats Venezuala In effect, Jones is the unlucky loser now, as Logan probably gets back in via NOC AUS seat, despite screwing up here. Indeed, the top two from the series who will miss out will probably both be brits, given South Africa will probably let Venezual a(Dhers) through

Just gone back to the documents. Unfortunately an unused host place goes to the 2023 UCI World Champs. So if JeanJean vacated his Qualifier quota, it would go to Jones. but he won't because it's a named space; the French can't take it from him. If he kept the host space,they could give it to someone else.

Yep, that's my understanding too

Story sof far: Curate's egg. At the end of BMX freestyle Qualification, GBR are in excellent shape for 2 Men's Park spots in BMX freestyle. The big loser this AM was Logan Martin, Australia who came in 2nd and is gong to leave empty handed , Reilly and Jones effectively now 2nd and 3rd going into the final, and both with a handy buffer over the 7th placed rider overall, would take a VERY random set of results to deny them both now, especially with a third Brit as a back up. In women's freestyle, Worthington is not mathematically safe, but she is more or less in on World Champs placement at worst, again, would take a bizarrely random set of results to eliminate her, and it's not realistic. Pardoe, sadly, is gone. In Skateboard Park, Sky Brown and Lola Tambling are comfortably in come what may. Lily Strachan is agonisingly going to be first reserve, although a Brazillian, Ameriican or Japanese withdrawing is no good for her. In Men's Street, Hinson is out. In Men's Park the wrong Brit scraped through to the next round; Calvert was rather closer to a spot, and McDonald, who scraped through in 16th, is going to need a significant result to squeeze into the top 20 overall. Boulder and Lead : McNeice is almost there already already guaranteed solid points here to go with her fabulous Shanghai effort, and Thompson Smith and McArthur look pretty well placed to build on their strong shanghai outing. Breaking has not yet begun, and I will not be giving a tinker's about it when it does! It offends my dignity to refer to any professional olympic athlete as a B-boy, (I'm not even happy referring to triathlon athletes who are clearly domestiques as 'pilots', frankly) so I'm afraid someone else will have to keep us up to date on B-Boy shakeyabooty and B-Girl Farmersmarket.

world.rugby via rugbypass.tv

It's slightly complicated, but the bottom line is that GBR are all but guaranteed a quota from the World Champs, subject to enough continents getting in. But the calculation can't happen until the OQS results are in, it's all a bit weird. As it stands, Hannah Roberts will give up her World Champs slot, which will bring Charlotte to the 2nd of three spots in WC, which allows room for an African qualifier. I think one of the chinese might too, and given the Australia is there, africa is probably the only 'continental' spot needed. basically so far we have : French host, 2022 USA, SUI (both of whom are here in top 12), 2023 (same USA H Roberts) CHN GBR - but these aren't confirmed until after the OQS French is therefore irrelevant, as if they get a OQS spot, they cough up the Host spot and 6 becomes 7 anyway The only continental slots that would be required would be Africa/Oceania, but there's an aussie in the OQS shake up, There are also two chinese and 2 us in the shakeup - if they finish with 2 in top 6, they cough up their world champs clots which pushes CW further up in that class. bottom line is I think she can be eliminated, but it would take a VERY specific, very peculiar set of results.

You're right - my excel glitched me!