mpjmcevoy

The road race was the only realistic chance (10m is not Seonaid's event, she basically used it for warm up), and in the end, despite Calamity Thomas eating gravel AGAIN, both the yates twins and Dan Martin of Ireland were in the pointy end of the race - Perhaps losing Thomas reduced the ability to break up that big group earlier, but the Yates twins at the sharp end was a perfectly defensible result. Podagar and WvA are ridiculously strong, while Carapaz is an absolute rascal. Other than that, no-one expected anything at the judo, getting to the quarters in the archery was actually slight overachievement, the swimmers seem to be off to a decent start, the tennis results for the men's doubles were fantastic, and both Drinkhall in the TT and the XD in badminton won what they were supposed to. McGrail's loss was disappointing, but no shock if you saw him at the Euro qualifiers. Good wins in Soccer, hockey In the gymnstics, given the shambles the sport is in, their secure 5th place team result, Whitlock and Fraser in their respective apparatus finals, and Fraser generally very strong on AA represents an acceptable return. If whitlock brings back silver or better, the works done in terms of justifying the sport. The rowing, however......

Wow. Looks like you guys might be on a bit of a countdown. Crap situation.

Vicky Thornley certainly has a medal chance. but it seems clear something has gone very, very wrong in the prep. Seems Grobblar's departure has led to disaster, which given how long he was there, and how long there was to secure institutional memory of him knowledge and skills is pretty unforgivable. Expect an inquest post Tokyo.

Carnage in the first mixed pairs Archery.... I like it.

Don't panic yet on the rowers. It looked like their start went to pot, and they overcooked trying to bring it back. They were relatively close on time to all the main boats (within a couple of seconds), and should be able to get out of the repechage in 3rd gear. But they will have needed an inquest today over how that happened. Puspure didn't look altogether happy, and still won at a canter, as did Vicky Thornley. Early days there...

I understand a a straight single knockout is the standard format for this event, but it does feel like Korea's overwhelming dominance creates a skewed draw where it is actually better to rank 11th than rank 8th because you get to avoid Korea until the final. Perhaps a final group stage would even that out, I don't know...

Disastrous qualifier for the women's team. Bettle's personally did pretty well, but 9th is a disastrous position - frankly 11th would have suited far better, as Italy or ROC is a bit of a toss-up, but KOR in the quarterfinal is simply terminal. Women's team was GBR's best medal hope, with an outside chance to swing bronze if the draw fell right. That's pretty much gone now.

And personally, I hope by 2026 we get to see her in a Commonwealth Games Shooting tournament again!

In her sport, as well, let's face it, she's a prodigy who could very well be competitive into her mid forties if not longer. The odds are she'll be there in 2024 AND 2028 and quite possibly 2032. If SOMEONE has to miss out, one could argue amber will get a better chance to get what she's capable of than most. Imagine being a women's gymnast covided out at your peak - sad enough when the phenomenal italian Georgia Villa was withdrawn for injury last week.

Gracenote always follow world Champs/rankings to make their predictions and in many sports, that's fair enough. In others, though, it's a shambles, and track cycling is classically one of those shambles - Lord alone knows what form GB are in, though the astonishing speed of the Women's pursuit team in the low key europeans in 2020 suggests they ain't done yet. Add in the long break since the last worlds in many sports, the vagaries of trying to extend form another year, the practical halting in many countries of anti-doping and the effects of covid on everything, and frankly it's a lottery. GB, USA, AUS etc are going to miss medals they never counted on missing, and win medals they never really thought were winnable...and for funding purposes, the safest thing is to treat this Games as sui generis, unique. In GB's case, with the particular 'Great England Nationalist' government we currently enjoy, gold medals are right up thier street - these guys won't slash sports funding. Schools, hospitals, maybe, but not the 'ambassadors'

Really sad, and a relatively unheralded, but super strong medal/gold chance, so it stings, but definitely a situation you might say, look, Paris is only three years away, it's not the same wait as usual. Double pity the Commonwealth Shooting and Archery championship had to be cancelled too

Certain large but provincial cities in major traditional 'markets' will look on the Brisbane decision with excitement - in GB, the obvious candidates Birmingham and Manchester, possibly the North East and Glasgow will suddenly feel it is possible. Likewise large cities in Germany that are not Munich or Berlin. Spain and Madrid might be less happy with a perceived opening up of the field. Of course, the silly thing is Barcelona showed just how an Olympics can elevate a 'second' city - the IOC should never have been so silly in the first place. But then, that's on a loop, isn't it.

Agree. If Yee makes the first bike group after the swim, I'd nearly have him as the slight favourite overall - and even more so if Brownlee makes the same group, because he'll insist on pushing the bike on. On current form, I'd make GBR very slight favourites for the Relay - predicting a Learmouth - Brownlee - Georgia - Yee quartet, it seems purpose built for relay - Learmouth's big swim/bike combo should hopefully blow up the pack and prevent a proper peloton forming, Brownlee's best distance is arguably sprint distance, and Yee for the finisher. For the women's event, it feels a bit like GBR v the World, the GBR team is that strong, without having one dominating Ali Brownlee style athlete. No other nation has that depth at the moment, but several have individuals who could absolutely win gold.

I find your picks fascinating. I've noticed on the US centric SwimSwam site, that outside GBR, there seems an internationally shared complete confidence that the Brits are going to win the long relay (4 x 2 free), and an equally confident belief they have no chance of gold in the men's or mixed medley relays. you seem to reflect this. IN GBR itself however, there is nothing like that confidence in the 4 x 200, although they recognise the potential, but they are quite worried about Russians, Aussies and Americans, while they seem to have real hope in the medleys where Peaty is seen as a huge trump card, even with Andrew, and the surge of both Greenbank and Kathleen Dawson are seen as gamechangers. You may very well be right, but I find the difference in how the long relay and medley teams are seen in internal views of the GBR, and from the outside intriguing. For my money, Titmus in 200, Ledecky in 800 and 1500 and Peaty in 100 br are the only 'bankers' on this list. Rylov and Milak are big favourites, but not untouchable.

I would agree he'd be an excellent super domestique, with the capacity to move for himself depending on how the race panned out, but I don't think it's likely to happen. One would hope the more patchy quality of the Olympic field might help Yee, as there is less likely to be a pronounced break between a large group of strong swimmers and the rest, which would hopefully allow him to work himself back to the lead peloton. In the women's side, for GB the perfect scenario would be the three women getting free with maybe another three or four others, with Learmouth piling it on at the front - that would put Georgia in a good spot for the run. I think it's an odd scenario - the men's through yee is the best bet for gold - on is current form if he makes a manageable front group, he becomes favourite - but the women's race may be a batter bet for a medal at all, because its VERY hard to see all three failing, but there are a number of very dangerous entries that could beat them for gold in the run.

Jonnie Brownlee is a romantic hoice, but not a rational one - frankly, Alex Yee is a MUCN likelier winner at the moment - if he makes the front group on the bike after the swim - and that IF is the key - , on current form, he's slight favourite - Vincent Luis is not close to his form leading up to the Pandemic. Mola of course will always be a threat. Brownlee, however, will be in his element in the relay - he's actually much stronger over sprint distances than Ali Brownlee ever was, and stick him after the superswimmer Learmouth....

Indeed, she is

Yes, and Dygert is in the Women's Team Pursuit, is she not?

Thats' not quite fair. Cycling NOCs have always been able to fill their quota places in one discipline from athletes named in another - The French famously tried it a few games ago the other way round I think, trying to use a Road berth to squeeze in another trackie.

I see a lot of that for GB actually - they'll be in a scrap for gold, which they might lose, but hard to see no medal at all - both Duncan Scott's events fall into that class, for example, as do both Triathlon relay, Women's Omnium, Madison and Team Pursuit (the latter maybe less of a battle)

All very, very good calls - Mixed relay triathlon in particular, given recent Yee form. I'd be tempted to add Laugher & Goodfellow, 3m synchro, Duncan Scott, 200 free, mens 4x200 freestyle, mixed 4x100 medley and the women's 4 x 100m relay in athletics, Sky Brown, skateboarding, Kate French in Modern Pentathlon, Duncan Scott (again) 200 IM, Max Whitlock in pommel horse, and Laura Trott-Kenny in Omnium. For my primary team, Ireland - I think we're about to have a hell of a games, honestly (by our standards, anyway) - LM2x, W1x and W4x, Kellie Harrington, quite possibly Michaela Walsh, Rhys McClenaghan in pommel horse, all really solid medal shots, with several of the boy boxers a good shout as well. Our record for a single games is 6 medals, our gold record for a single games is 3, and they don't really count (Michelle de Bruin Smith), the record after that is 2 golds. I think those numbers, 2 golds and 6 total medals could genuinely be under threat at this games, especially if we can sneak a medal in Equestrianism or road cycling (long shots both, but both possible).... I forsee, in particular, a couple of possibly intriguing GBR v IRL battles - Pommel, Harrington v Dubois, Possible Puspure v Thornley

The one upside is that there will be 4 consecutive global champs after this, including a home worlds for her next year, and Paris only three years away. If she plays it cool, does the Diamond League circuit after the Games, she could make money hand over fist - America loves a 'redemption arc' - and be set fair for superstardom - not least because this is the one 'doping' story where most people who hear it will sympathise with her - indeed, given who her coaching team is, she could hardly have asked for a better story.

Hard agree. I'm a great believer, broadly, in 'bang for your buck' (Shooting pun absolutely intended!) when it comes to the Games. There's huge pressure to reduce the total number of athletes, and you can't muck around wasting them - I think, in some ways archery gets it right - the ranked team places come first, and EVERY team member gets a shot in the individual. Then the remaining places go to the ranked individuals. This is one of the ways Archery managed to snag a fifth event without ANY quota alterations - and a fifth event which will give many more NOCs an opportunity at a 'team' event (as they only need a single male and single female). FWIW the same principle means I believe every venue, especially expensive new ones, should find ways to cram in as many events as possible where that doesn't conflict, or can be made not to conflict, with quota numbers...So for example, I don't see why we can't have a mixed pair skeet, as it would require not a single new quota place, no new facility.

They do care, but IOC/ITF and ATP/WTA don't make it easy. And Covid is playing havoc with all professional sport. No-one who saw Rafa's doubles win in Rio, Djoks tears when Del Potro put him out, or either of the Murray finals would under any illusion players don't care. Different players have different relationships with it - for both Murray and De Potro, it's absolutely a major part of their legacy, for Djok it's the one last thing he doesn't have. For Roger, it's a national pride thing for a country with limited summer olympic gold opportunities. for some of the Mixed doubles pairs, its validation of their event, for others its just a festival of sport, a cnahnce to rub shoulders with heroes in other sports - (and the lack of fans is undoubtedly putting many off)