mpjmcevoy

My instinct, FWIW, is the final women's team will be Potter, Taylor Brown, Waugh, with Potter and Taylor Brown in the relay. They may not have much of a choice on the men's side, with Johny Brownless looking like he's going through his late Andy Murray period; the lack of new blood is stark. Potter and Taylor Brown remain I think the best gold medal shot, while Yee needs to do something about his week swim which has now hit him at numerous key races. For the relay, the key need in 'Man 1' is a strong swimmer (as Learmonth so memorably was, splitting the race definitively in Tokyo on the first mini-leg) ; if GBR are still in the race when woman 1 takes over, a back end of Taylor Brown, Yee, Potter can take it home. If not, they'll be fighting for podiums.

If Ngamba wins a quota, and then gets GB citizenship, what happens?

The GBR pipeline used to consist of ex-pursuiters (Wiggins, Boardman, Thomas, Armitstead/Deignan) and imports (Sciandri, Froome) with the odd (often Manx) Maverick (Yates, Miller, Cavendish, Kennaugh, Swift) thrown in. That's the GBR blueprint all the way back to the Beryl Burtons and Tom Simpsons of this world, and in a sense, even before the Keen revolution, it worked pretty well for a basically non-cycling nation with no high mountains. Recently, however, the GBR youth scene seems to have come over all Oranje/Belge, with a steady stream of super quality riders over multiple surfaces - Pidcock, Savkstadt, Ferguson). It's a nice and useful change of pace. From an Irish perspective it doesn't hurt to be so strong that people like Ben Healy take the Dan Martin route, just as we have an Eddie Dunbar and a Sam Bennett, and a handful of other interesting riders coming through home grown.

Fraser is former world champ, Tullough a world medalist - on FORM, they're all medal threats. this might be an unusually form dominated choice; there's too many good gymnasts to pick a good 'un whose currently out of form.

It strikes me Tullouch's great vaulting and increasingly decent PB Bars, along with still strong Rings gives him a much better chance than Rings alone would suggest - he's not far off a finalist level in vault alone when he puts it together. What the team seems to lack at the moment is a genuine AA threat, but it has a lot of impressive 'bits and pieces', with Hall the guy who is jack of all trades, master of none (in the original complementay sense "...is better by half than a master of one") ties it all toether (see, in earlier era Kristian Thomas) If anything the problem is too many good bits and pieces, but few obvious specilist medal shots. It feels like a team that will need to be carefully chosen to really push the Team chances, while noting Whitlock remains the safest bet for an individual medal, followed by Jarman and possibly Fraser. Tullough on rings and PB (two shonky apparatus for GB) as well as vault is a strong argument for him, with Hall as your HB and all around backup on everything. Seems to me Hepworth and , if fit, Regini Moran are the threats to those five, Hepworth to Tulloch, Regini Moran to Fraser or Jarman.

Ferociously tough ask now for Italy with one race left and two British boats way ahead of them (27 pt lead GBR1 - ITA1 with maximum 31 possible gained if GBR are DQ and Italy win); this looks like a quota for GBR now.

Ever? Yes. In time for Paris? Somewhere between not very likely and not a chance. But hard to tell what end of the scale.

Do we know how many ranking points are left to win? We must be getting to the stage where some nations are mathematically secure?

I can only assume Emile himself has not absolutely decided which event to target, marathon or 10,000...

If I was being ultra objective, 2 men 1 woman would seem fair - GB have a lot of good men, and one brilliant woman. The woman may be the best (50/50) shout for racing gold, but several of the men are medal possible, whereas Beth is about it at the moment. i noticed over the weekend Cat Ferguson picking up a national Track medal - as you do in between snagging age grade medals on CX, MTB and Road.... In the understdable excitement over generational talents like Pidcock, Backstedt and Tarling, I hope we don't take our eye off Ferguson coming through

She's a legend and a super hot favourite, but no way is she a lock - too many good 1500m runners who could have 'that' day in, say, a wet race.

Their bus could crash. Nothing, nothing is ever 100% locked. But yes, the USA men's team come close.

I agree, although I wonder if the BritSurge was more specifically about Jason Kenny than GB sprinters in general - Hoy ruled the roost the whole time when he was on top, as did Vicky Pendleton in a kind of dual monarchy with Anna Meares. It was Kenny who had the unusual talent for peaking. That said, the dutch sprinters are alien-level good at the moment, even if Hoogland is on the downslope. FWIW, I can see the Brit WOMEN sprinters doing a worldie behind Finucane, who already looks a generational talent, maybe even more than Becky James (who GBR have sorely missed the last two cycles)

Not that many though. Yes, some would be an almighty shock, but any one event can go askew. The last four Olympics the Chinese have been red hot favourites for a clean sweep - and in every single games someone got them at least once. Mitcham, Boudia, Laugher & Mears, Daley & Lee - every four years, like clockwork, somebody has the best day of their lives at the expense of China - and its been 4 different events. Maybe this will finally be their sweep. They ought to. But... you can trace a hint of the pattern all the way back to 1988. China dominate, someone spoils the perfect....

It's VERY difficult to see past the Dutch male sprinters, even now, for example. The women sprinters looks likely to be a straight showdown - Germany v Great Britain Men's and Women's team pursuit a bit more unpredictable.

Obviously nothing is ever a 100% lock because you can get hit by a bus. So leaving that aside : I don't see McLaughlin as a lock AT ALL. She's the favourite, but no more. I frankly have a hunch it will be Bol. Just had to get that off the chest.

Caudrey has been an emerging talent for a few years, but has absolutely skyrocketed to world class in about 18 months - it's not just that she hit a 4.80 mid. It's that she's doing it in almost every competition at the moment, which makes her an absolute medal shout at elite level, though she will likely need 4,90 if she's gonna scare the top step. If holly Bradshaw makes it back by the summer, you may have the absurdity of women's pole vault being GB's best field event - and trust me, in a GB historic context, that is an absurdity.

I guess I'm nervous of a system that gives more points to a straight WLLL than a LWWW - it makes that first match worth more than all the others combined; a tournament system works better, I think because you earn your way to the extra points. Of course, if you had time, 4 groups of eight would be even better, perhaps using time to score as the equivalent of goal difference. You could then break into 4 set of eight - each fencer then has 7+3 matches, which sounds a lot compared to maybe 4 or 6, but is still vastly less than the current complete round robin.

2024 MP bears little resemblance 1950's MP It's an arbitrary sport in many ways, invented not evolved. And most importantly, perhaps, without the Olympics it will die. Best to accept the new format as the MP equivalent of rugby sevens - a Games based 'taster' version of the sport, while other versions - including Classic Equestrian with separate run and shoot, perhaps - exist outside the Olympics (perhaps in world Games)

What you want is Either - a rugby sevens style 'shield, plate and bowl' competition which will give everyone broadly equal matches, and a detailed ranking OR a 'tournament' with seeded groups of four, followed again by a 'shield, plate and bowl' style ranking competition (my preference, so first loss does not condemn you to 17th place at best) For 32 competitors, that would work out at 4 matches each in scenario 1 or 6 matches each in scenario 2, but would still have a certain sporting authenticity to it, ad would increase the actual jeapordy of each match.

True, but it's a fairly obvious mathematical way to 'rejig' the numbers for 'universality' - it's precisely this effect they're aiming at - it's a feature, not a bug.

I think the issue is translation skills, to be honest. Especially with the 'jargon' the IOC tend to insist upon.

Is London Marathon the trials event?

It doesn't count for swim ireland, but it does for IOC. And its Paris 2024 who give out the quotas. If Ireland reject one, that's fine, but that's a case of handing a place back, not having failed to win it.