mpjmcevoy

THe basic discovery+/Eurosport sub that includes the Games is not expensive - its on offer at the minute for about 4£ a month. The TNT premium sub is about 30£ pm and, imho, wildly overpriced.

No, Kalaks are asking for independence. Kalaks are indigenous people in NC, but they are the minority. Your argument is not helped by reliance on such poor analogies.

There's about six countries play it, CB. IRL have just contracted the world cup back to 10 teams, and the next would be hosts pulled out. Not a chance that's gonna happen. And much as i can enjoy the odd game of League, if ever a sport had a same-y issue, it's RL. No competition for the ball, just roll, run, bang, standup, roll, run, bang, standup, roll, run, bang, standup, kick...repeat.

Attendances at seven's is, increasingly, a bit pathetic - it's become too sanitised and robotic, and the format too same-y.

The course is a puncheurs/'Ardennes' style course, and neither Yates brother is one of those - I don't think choosing Pidcock and Williams is accidental, given the wins in the Amstel gold and Fleche. Fred is also a breakway specialist, and a strong climber... As for tactics? My guess is that Pogacar, Remco, Van de Poel and Van Aert all fancy their chances, and this could be a tear up for the ages - Pog and Remco are quite likely to be knackered after Le Tour (Pogs second grand tour, though he was barely pushed in the first) and Remco has been injured, and looks a little short of form. My hunch is MvdP goes in as favourite, though only just. He's ditching the MTB to do this so he's all in. So how does this play into the GBR team? Well, Pidcock is the Andy Murray of that group. He's very, very, very good...but he's not that quarter good. What he DOES have is an absolute machine in Tarling, and a legitimate 1-2 punch in williams - you don't win Fleche if you're a grunt. My instinct is they will try and get Fred up the road for the breakaway - watch out if he somehow allies with Ben Healy who's also an outside threat, and might fancy a strong breakaway in a race with much smaller teams than usual. Pidcock and Williams then simply sit on the stars, and hopefully let the teams punch themselves out - or put Tarling on the front and try to rip the legs of the rest of the peloton. In any event, I suspect what they want is Pidcock AND williams up there near the sharp end deep in the race, and try and one-two punch their way to a medal. Also, If Pog attacks on pure strength, as he often does, Tarling is one of the few who might be able to slowly drag the boys back up to him....

I think the rugby is a bit stand alone to be honest I definitely think doing something with the combat sports would work, especially if Karate came back; it would have a 'festival of fight sport' feel and would have a wide appeal given the sports tend to have discrete areas of interest and specialism. You could have a lot of silly fun using venues too - I quite like the idea of weightlifting at Muscle Beach in 2028!

Well, by god, they've gone and bloody done it! Tom Pidcock will double up in road race and mountain bike! Ethan Hayter will double up in time trial and Team Pursuit, Tarling pulls out of the team pursuit, who can now maximise quotas https://www.bbc.co.uk/sport/cycling/articles/c4nnd49w9rmo Team GB cycling squad Men's track endurance: Dan Bigham, Ethan Hayter, Charlie Tanfield, Ethan Vernon, Ollie Wood, Mark Stewart (travelling reserve) Men's track sprint: Jack Carlin, Ed Lowe, Hamish Turnbull, Joe Truman (travelling reserve) Men's road: Ethan Hayter (time trial), Tom Pidcock (road race), Josh Tarling (time trial and road race), Stevie Williams (road race), Fred Wright (road race) Women's track sprint: Sophie Capewell, Emma Finucane, Katy Marchant, Lowri Thomas (travelling reserve) Women's mountain bike: Ella Maclean-Howell, Evie Richards Men's mountain bike: Charlie Aldridge, Tom Pidcock Very interesting Men's road team - no Geraint Thomas, nor Mark Cavendish, Tarling obviously the engine then three climb-capable puncheurs in Pidcock (Amstel gold winner this year, Strade Bianche last), Stevie Williams (who won Fleche Wallone this year) and Fred Wright, perennial runner up, and Ethan Hayters housemate! I meantion those three races because, as one day races, they're basically the ost prestigious after the five monuments - and the ones that have similarities to the Frence parcours. Women's road team yet to be announced, as well as BMX (although Reilly is already booked by named quota), and Women's endurance.

It was, in my view, a brilliant way to showcase slightly lesser known sports, with some olympic stardust sprinkled on them. One could consider the final chance boxing, archery, table tennis and rugby qualifiers to be a not dissimilar construct I think the IOC has maybe got this partially right - they increase their broadcast toehold and influence without 'creating' another olympics - and did it in a thematic way - what would be good would be if IFs could sit down with IOC, and the continental Games, and work out systems of qualification that made as many events as possible a must see - rankings are fair, and absolutely have a place but they aren't really exciting - qualification competitions generally are (mixed triathlon relay final qualifier, etc) But the IFs and the continental Games will want their own events given some Olympic 'juice', and I think IOC should, where at all possible, accommodate that too. Of course some sports, this won't work with - Football, 5x5 basketball, Gold, possibly tennis. But I think there are win-wins here for IFs, including continental IFs, Continental Games and the IOC itself getting more organised on it - and I think the themed nature of OQS shows the way... For example, what if there were 'final qualifiers/OQS' for all the combat sports, in one place. Not the bulk of the quotas, of course, but just those final few spots in Boxing, Judo, Taekwonso, wrestling, possibly fencing, shooting and archery (or perhaps the last three and modern pentathlon could form a separate, "armed combat" pod?) Beach volleyball might be the core of, dare I suggest, a beach and sea based final qualifier? Beach Volleyball, Triathlon, Sailing, open water swimming, maybe High iving, somewhere delightfully hot and sunny - Bermuda, perhaps... some sports don't need that pizzaz on their own events, but I suspect a lot of sports would welcome the kind of three ring circus attention the four urban sports got this weekend.

Britain's war in the Falklands was over before 1984 - moreover, it was British territory, and the vast majority of its citizens were adamant they wanted tor remain British. There's no comparison with Ukraine. There hasn't been conflict over gibraltar since about 1700. Again, the French colonisation of the pacific was a long time ago. IF New Caledonians want independence they should get it. Tibet is closer; and china's conrinuing threat to RepOChina/Taiwan is closer still as ROC have an NOC, albeit they use the Chinese Taipei name. Does hong Kong have enough functional independence anymore to justify an NOC? Israel and Palestine is horrific, and I would not cry if both were told to sit this Games out. I genuinely fear a repeat of Munich 72'.

I disagree, but it's not a bad argument. As was pointed out repeatedly before Beijing 2022, there are LOTS of conflicts in the world - but relatively few of them are a straightforward invasion of one soverign nation of another, during an Olympic truce. that said, how ROC was not simply expelled from IOC after Sochi, the mind boggles

Sub Poll 1. What were the top 3 close qualification misses (team/individual) which you regret ? Women's football. It was there for the taking and its a big step backward for the sport Men's sevens. That is a really, really, difficult pill for GB Rugby to swallow. BMX Racing, ket two genuine medal chances slip through the fingers Dishonourable mention: Canoe sprint - what the helll has happened there? Sanita in the W1x, just broke yer heart Hard to stomach so few road cyclists and no triathletes 2. Given an opportunity to add sports (not exceeding 5 sports and/or 20 events) with an athlete cap of 280 in total, what all would you chose? ADD: Events: Mountain Bike Short track : extra quotas 0 Individual pursuit : extra quotas 14 (7 per event, plus 2 per nation in team pursuit, and one per nation from omnium and madison not in team pursuit) Matchplay team golf event : extra quotas 0 (teams of 4, 2 men, 2 women, playing mens single matchplay, women single matchplay, mixed foursome matcplay over 9 holes (ties broken with one shot nearest the pin on the 10th) - sum total of 38 holes for last 16/QF/SF and medal matches. 50m in backstroke, butterfly and breaststroke : extra quotas 72 Mixed 4 x 200 medley : extra quotas 0 Sports: Squash : events 4, MS, WS, MD, WD - extra quotas 64 (16, 16, 8 x2, 8 x 2) Snooker: events 2, extra quotas 32 Ms, WS (16, 15) Parkour : events 6 (Speed, Freestyle and Cage Pursuit) extra quotas 88 (32 (16, 16), 24 (12, 12), 32 (16, 16)) (3 sport with 12 events, plus further 12 events, 270 quotas) 3. If you had the opportunity to make 3 changes(3 events/3 sports) to schedule at Paris '24 what would you do? 1. Bin breaking. 2. Bring back Karate 3. Bring back C2 slalom

I think today was quite deliberately the last 'international' day to win quotas, although athletics trials will continue, and here will be a fair amount of chopping and changing yet, due to injury, always is. Eg in Tennis both Murray and Evans could be in injury trouble, I'm not sure if its possible, but I think Glasspool and Murray Sr might have a score to get into doubles if Murray and Evans had to swap out, A lot of sports will now be going through the 'reallocation' process too in vaoious events. On men's skeet, we haven't heard of any withdrawals that would open up a final ranking spot. --- On checking, there are still a few basketball quotas to be decided, but that's pretty much it - Judo qualification quietly ended today with GBR in qualifying places in 5 women's weights; that's 26 sports, and by my broad calculation there are genuine medal shouts in about 23 or 24.

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.