mpjmcevoy

The men's pros have only ridden since '92, that's why you don't remember them - as soon as you rode a pro race, you were barred (see Kelly, Séan)

I think you just have to tell yourself that the Olympic Road Race is a unique proposition - it's not just the World Champs+ or an extra classic - rather it's a rather back to basics design - very small teams, if teams at all, no radios - the 'team' element that is quietly ubiquitous in cycling is deliberately undercut. It's a feature, not a flaw - or both a flaw and a feature if you are a semi-traditionalist. If you are a dutch, or belgian, I dare say that pisses you off. If you are an Austrian part time pro, or an ecuadorian, it's a positive boon. At the moment, to be fair there are about half a dozen 'once in a generation superstars all riding at once, an astonishing thing (think of the Big 4 in tennis), and maybe another half a dozen super dangerous riders, covering about 8-10 nations; it's kinda cool, once in 4 years, to see them unmoored from their team support, and just riding on fumes and instinct - it lets clever riders like Carapaz steal a march!

The original omnium had a rather nice balance of bunch racing and TT, short distance an longer - it felt like a genuine all rounder test, rather than just another points race.

It's an increasingly clear tactic; put your best pure diesel in the front for the middle half/third, and have them just churn through the laps until exhaustion

The only thing that occurs to me, apart from the who's who of dreadful totalitarian regimes that have been invited, is the sheer hypocrisy of hearing from Russia about 'depoliticising' sport - and then they run with this crap. A slap in the face to Bach, who frankly deserves it. So can we just put that canard about non-politicised sport away now once and for all? Increasingly I find myself questioning the value of 'extreme' globalisation on the sports front. Doesn't seem to me the Olympics is increasing world peace, or bringing peoples together - quite the opposite. I wonder if the 'West' which Russia clearly hates so much might just be better off accepting that hate, and cutting ties with it permanently, giving up on that globalisation and begin organising around states and provinces that share some basic ideals of decency. Perhaps we need to revive the Goodwill Games, but for nations with actual good will - perhaps the Commies and the Jeux de Francophonie can be folded into a new design that doesn't dance to the tune of oligarchs, dictators and despots. </rant>

I suppose not everybody can be a Yee or an Ali Brownlee, in terms of early breakthrough - GTB wasn't particularly young when she came through, and Potter has surged quite late. The big disappointment for me (apart from Ireland not having an elite triathlete worth a damn right now) is Ben Djikstra, who had Yee-like early signs but just never broke through. One probably shouldn't be greedy - for the Brownlee generation to get followed up by Yee is more than most nations could hope for - Australia, for example, must sometimes wonder what the hell happened! (I've jinxed it now, and the Aussies will find a raft of superstars in the next six months!)

With Brownlee slipping down the rankings, if Izzard backed this up with a good Finals result, GBR could be left with an awkward problem re relay.

Followed by the 4x50 medley relays...followed by THE OMNIUM = the 8 x 50, 8 x 100 mixed medley !

I wouldn't mind a mixed 4 x 200 medley relay - give the distance strokes a medley to aim at...

Yep, took me until today to work out what they were playing at, as it is so bad for the publicity for the event for all the home stars not to attend. Barclay Izzards 8th will come as a pleasant surprise to selectors, and the relay result today was spectacularly unexpected. If GTB gets back to health, GBR can give the French a run for their money. If not, the French will walk out. Interesting that the next female Brit off the rank, Kate Waugh, has made a great start to her career, yet the cupboard remains bare for the men...

If the Essex/Yorkshire reports are accepted, we haven't quite got our heads around Caribbean and subcontinent cricketers yet, never mind polish! Ireland for the first time really ever is starting to have this; there's a number of Polish, Lithuanian and Nigerian names popping up all over the show, which delights me. We exported our guys long enough to the four corners of the globe, overdue some imports!

Often wondered why Weightlifting didn't 'borrow' some strongman style lifting events.

The World Games had a budget of 75$M. It's at least if not more complicated than the CWG and truth be told, sadly, nowhere near as popular. How on earth you end up with a budget of 7BILLION$ when you already have a city full of venues ready to go defies me. If Anything, given its history and relative prestige, the CWG should be easy wins. EDIT: Just checked, budget for Munich 2022 was 130M euro. And Munich didn't skimp. I appreciate there's no athletes village as such. Fine. don't have an athlete's village - or design one in such a way as to cover your costs by selling as housing afterwards. The 7Billion figure is getting harder and harder to explain...

One has to remember, the commies existed in an eco system where world champions were either sporadic (swimming) or non existant (athletics) where europeans happened every 4 years, There were no European Games, no combined European Championships and almost all the competitive countries in the Olympic style sports were Commonwealth, European or the USA - in that system, Commonwealth Games were a major, and hugely useful event, arguably the third biggest swimming and athletics meets in the world. Times Change. The commies has not entirely changed with them. Originally one of the keys to the CWG was that there were no team sports. but times changed - in my view, rightly. Olympics have now adopted rugby sevens and hockey, two very Commonwealth Sports but Netball and Cricket still exist outside the Olympic fold. The CWG are outside the Olympic fold. That should be sold as a good thing, because not everyone is overly happy with the olympic fold at the moment - Bach, like some sort of Medieval Pope has taken the IOC in a rather dark direction on a number of issues IMHO. The CWG is its own beast - it doesn't pretend to be universal, it doesn't sell itself as that - it's a Friendly Games, a meeting of peoples with some painful histories but bright futures; it has its own story, a post colonial story (for that reason, I do wish there was a way to integrate Ireland and the US into the games, perhaps as 'observers', acknowledging the historical link without reentering the organisation. in Birmingham, the swimming meat was a class meet - Any meet with AUS, CAN, NZL, ENG, SCO, RSA, SGP and JAM may not be the World Champs, but that's a quality meet. The Athletics was, as it has been for a while, a bit of a parsons egg, though it was all fun. The M1500 was awesome, as was the w800, and w10,000; and the MJavelin. The crowds were good and athletes and fans alike enjoyed it. It doesn't have to be full throttle worlds best kill and be killed - a bit of friendly rivalry is sufficient

I don't think you are far wrong, and I think CGF/Commonwealth Sport should prepare for that by examining, where plausible, a 'Championships' model for other sports - it may be CGF will spend as much time in organising and recognising individual championship events as in organsiing a large quadrennial Games. I note the commonwealth Weightlifting championships is taking place as we speak, and India floated a not terrible idea of a combined Archery and Shooting Championships that was knocked on the head by covid, but is not a terrible idea. The advantage not only being that individual events are easier to host, but potential hots can go for the sports they like and get decent support for... e I would be amazed if, even if the Games disappeared, Netball did not maintain a stand alone Commonwealth Championships, ditto Bowls. Other sports could downsize or resize - for example, I reckon you could create a tight, popular 3 day track cycling event, centring on the home nations, AUS, NZl, TRD,Malaysia, SIN and CAN which would provide some value during the track season over one weekend. Likewise, even if it felt like a slightly development event, a Commonwealth Triathlon Championships would work absolutely fine, and probably be more competitive than several continental champs.

The Commies are an anachronism, but they're actually a really good event, with a really cool history - the Bannister-Landy mile and all that - they allow a lot of non-IOC entities some recognition, and the atmosphere, generally, is excellent - the 2010 disaster the only bad Games really in the last seven or eight, and even there, India probably learned something. In addition, while they are described as colonial, in all honesty I think they are the opposite - they absolutely started colonial, an Empire Games...but now the represent the opposite - all the nations that freed themselves from the London Yolk coming together with the Brits as equals, on their own terms (or not in the case of Ireland and Zimbabwe) - it's honestly more post-colonial than colonial, with one or two small issues (Charles III should NOT be titular head, the optics are terrible). The Jeux de Francophonie would love to have the stability, brand recognition and history of the CWG. maybe the two should merge....

One thing to be aware of - the 2026 European Athletics Championships are already in Birmingham, so if there is a UK Saviour bid, my guess is a '4 corners' proposal with the Games shared between the four home nations and possibly even the crown dependencies (road cycling in isle of man, triathlon in jersey) - the athletics, swimming and track cycling would imho be in London the swimming in Glasgow, the diving in Edinburgh, the cricket, sevens and netball in Cardiff, and the bowls, boxing and possibly shooting in Belfast. The rest of the sports would then fit around that, with perhaps one or two of the Arenas involved - possibly the Gymnastics to Liverpool as they have hosted the worlds and know the plan.... The CGF will be desperate to get to the centenary and have an Alberta, Canada games as a kind of homecoming. I think it entirely possibly they wind it up after that as a neat ending. The Brits will not, however, take the European Games seriously if the CWG falls. Their issues with the EG go deeper.

Second only to China, reinforcing GB's position as the second global diving power - admittedly a very long way after China - which, for those of us with memories is about as likely as GBR being a global power in Sumo. This result, remember achieved with no Daley, and no individual Laugher. Big positive for me is that Goodfellow, Williams and Kothari clearly positioned themselves as potentially world class. Big disappointment, obviously was Andrea, though Toulson did a fab recovery job that will keep her in the conversation for the spot along with the brilliant EG performance by Cheng. Andreas ceiling is much higher, and she's going, Equally, A fit Laugher is going, Houldon not quite having his 2022 form. Haslam probably comes back into the conversation given Houldon's struggles, but Laugher/Goodfellow are big favourites for the two spots, if the second spot is achieved. I suspect a full house will be achieved in Doha, which, again, in historic terms remains astounding.

Quite possibly, but it must be said this is shocking behaviour from Victoria, and I would not be shocked if Victoria is on the hook for quite a lot of compensation to CGF. CGF will, I suspect run back to Birmingham and Glasgow to see is there a way out of the mess - but this is actually worse than Durban, and second successive games were the host has had to pull the plug.

Good summary. If there were the old single sex 3 up relays, GBR would win the women's and the French the men's at an absolute cantor. At this stage they are holding poor Jonny Brownlee together with gaffer tape and bubble gum - get him off on the first leg where he's still a strong swimmer, go hard on the bike, and then hold on in the run long enough to get one of the three strong women off not TOO far behind. On the French side, the depth is brilliant, but they maybe can't match a fully fit Coldwell/Potter-Yee-Taylor-Brown backend. If either team turns up at even 95%, no other team wins gold....but both teams are well capable of finding a way not to be 95%. Bach was at the event this weekend, and there's a general consensus that World Triathlon are going to let the hare sit for the 2028 Games in terms of events, and let the mixed relay 'bed in', before attempting to expand in 32 in friendly territory (Aus loves tiathon) by adding this precise format - not just a sprint, but an eliminator super sprint. The thinking is that the soul of Triathlon is endurance. It's not truly a sport for sprinting, and they don't really want to be. however, sprint formats are popular, and the ability to do repeated speed bursts is a legit skill some great triathletes have, and some don't (Beaugrande, for example, looks far happier switch multiple shorter races than the two hour grind) - so this format which still tests endurance, but tests it in a different way seems to WA the best compromise - Triathlon has always had a 'cricket' issue with formats - purists love Ironman but it's not particularly TV friendly - Olympic is now, literally, the Standard race, but sprint formats are popular on TV and with IOC and the Mixed relay went down VERY well - but WA know they won't just get a sprint/1hr event or 30 minute event out of IOC - but this repeated battery? Yep, this will fly - Not least because you could maybe only add 10 'specialist' spots in each sex, and just let the main field also compete in the Elimination Sprint series - it doesn't require finding another 100 quota spots

The scoring has been pretty arbitrary at the AS, and not a great deal better at Diving - the Chinese are legitimately brilliant - but it doesn't help when they get a Beijing Bonus on every dive - there was at least one dive today that was borderline failed and was getting 8s!. Reminds me of interviews before the figure skating last year when skaters talked about how you had to 'serve your time' no matter how good you were - in other words, there was a rank arbitrary favouritism for senior pairs.

We are, actually, pretty rich in sculling, particularly lightweight sculling as it happens. rowing is one of the few sports where there is a genuine tug-of-war, still, between GBR and IRL - both countries are now strong rowing nations; Northern Ireland rowers cross the 'divide', so we get Alan Campbell and the chambers boys went to GB. If Ulster boxing was not so imbedded in Irish boxing, you might have similar issues there, but on the whole it's an all-irland sort - rowing is the exception where its both all Ireland AND all UK on occasion.

I know. Given the relative size of the country and pool, I wonder if Ireland might not consider a small elite 'academy' approach, near ish to Abbottstown

Hard to predict. Jimmy Guy was a really strong Euro Jr, back in his days, you could tell he was going to be good, Duncan Scott likewise. But Jimmy wasn't the standout star of his generation. That was Matthew Johnson, who stormed the Jrs...and then disappeared without trace....meanwhile a relatively unmedalled junior came through and actually did ok for GB as a senior...his name was Adam Peaty.

Ireland will be very happy with the Gold and silver for O'ullivan and Healy, both of whom look plausible pro athletes (to go with Rhasidat who turned pro this weekend). Sligh disappointment, perhaps was Olutunde, who's going a little backwards since last years breakthrough, and is so often the case, after a stream of talent in recent years, we were due a fallow year in women's sprint at this level (although great to see gina Moses back on the track - 11.4 at a GB 100m alongside Kristal Awuah. GB topped the table for the first time - they have regularly topped Jr and Youth, but this is the first U23, and will be broadly happy - their sweep of all 5000 and 10000 inflated their counts, but none of them really look like the breakthrough star that might actually challenge globally. FMedals for two women throwers were very encourging