mpjmcevoy

I think, in fairness, replacing the Male/Men's class with an open class, rather than adding a third class, would have, perhaps, been more realistic, but at this stage I don't get the impression the 'lobby' are interested in rational discussion, perhaps because it increasingly isn't working out well for them when such discussions occur. Even if the route I propose had been taken, I'm far from convinced any T competitors would have taken, or been qualified to take, that route. You are quite right, though, that it fatally undermines the "we only want to compete" line - it's clearly not the motivation given this bizarre episode (I mean, you could set up a world cup race, with prize money, for the most obscure class imaginable - "people called Darren with bald heads, beards and tattoos only", and a few guys would turn up to make a buck. No entries AT ALL, from the entire world is..something. In marathon running, there does seem to be some uptake in a specifically "non-binary" class, especially where there is some prize money. But I note, even there, the fields are tiny, and predominantly biologically males running pretty mediocre times. Honestly, not really sure how long that class will last under those conditions.

I think that is known as "testing an idea to destruction". What it probably does is give FINA/WA a much stronger case in the event of court action - they can show they 'bent over backwards' to find a viable compromise and the group of athletes in question were simply not interested in anything but inclusion on their own terms.

For GB to be looking at full road teams men's and women's is slightly bonkers in historic context, but there men's hope is the TT, I think - if Pidcock does MTB (and he'll be the favourite in all likelihood if he does) I can't see him doing the road race, but he's probably the only Brit suited to the course. Ireland, however, have a real medal shout, I think with Ben Healy - the obvious Slovenians and Low countries superstars will be favourites, of course. Om the women's side I suspect the TT will be Henderson and Backstedt Óg, and both are far from also-rans. Pfeiffer Georgi seems the form road racer to add. No real idea who Ireland would pick on the women's side - most attention seems to be on the women's pursuit on the track

For the women's team it's presumaby Allez les Bleues??

If Kiakowski wins Lombardia. Which is not likely, i think, but is equally not impossible - so long as Ineos pick him

Good call, actually, on McIlroy. Lowry would be a brilliant choice, he'd love it, and I absolutely should not have left out Sanita - I'm a big supporter of honouring the 'New Irish'. If he qualifies, Thomas Barr is another shout, as is any of our women's boxers. To be fair, our likely team is going to be full of worthy bearers - we've seldom had such a great Olympic focus in the past, being a team sport orientated nation with a tendency to enjoy some non-Olympic stuff too (horseracing, GAA, snooker etc)

Don't think it will be - I think it's VERY likely we're going to some form of 24 team world cup, possibly with plate and shield competitions And the extra 4 places, I think Americas get 2, Africa and Asia get 1/2 each and probably Europe gets 1 I honestly think world rugby would be VERY keen, prior to the first World Cup in the Americas to get as many Americas teams as possible - Arg, Uru, Chi, USA and Can

In Men's mountain bikiing the favourite for Man 2 has to be the new world U23 champ, surely, just future proofing alone - he frankly looks the business already - maybe not a medal shout, but a strong rider In women's mountain biking I half wonder if Zoe Backstedt, given her cyclocross experience and talent might be an outside chance, though I imagine annie Last is still in poll position I'm not up enough on the current state of Men's BMX racing to guess who man 2 is going to be - surprises are nice! On the road, Adam Yates is making a valiant effort to single handedly keep GBR in the seat for 4 riders, but it still comes down to Lombardia IMHO; if the yates boys go and do a decent rider, there's a chance. On Paris, can't help thinking the best man GBR have got for such a course is Pidcock (think Liege), but doubling up isn't sensible. Assuming they want to save a TT seat for Tarling at the minimum, Pidcock isn't doubling, and Hayter will be back on the track, are we talking Yates, Yates, Thomas? For the women, I'm assuming Zoe B and Anna Henderson for the TT, plus Pfeiffer Georgi... On the track, the two pursuit squads seem settled, though GBR men obviously need to go chasing points. The women's sprint is suddenly in clover, but the men's sprint is still a bit meh. As for Ireland, fewer choices, but not without excitement - I reckon Dunbar and Healy, with Healy an outside shout for a RR medal

: Mona McSherry & Rhys McClenneghan OR Ciara Mageann & Daniel Wiffen OR (leftfield) Nhat Nguyen & Rhasidat Adeleke OR Rory McIlroy & Lucy Mulhall

Assuming, probably safely, that GBR will prioritise the team medal, it becomes difficult to justify two specialists - and Whitlock is much more a medal threat than Tulloch. Hepworth has REALLY hit the ground running, which only complicates matters further! So for those two spots you are probably looking at Tulloch v Hall v Hepworth v Regini-Moran at a minimum, and possibly Whitehouse and Nathan as complete dark horses that you can't entirely rule out...Can't ever remember depth like this before for GBR - maybe for a brief period during the switchover from the Smith-Keating-Thomas generation to the Whitlock-Wilson-Oldham one

I still agree that Germany, Turkey and Spain are basically safe. Hazard begins at Netherlands, though they'd rightly be miffed if they lost the spot from here... Italy and the Swiss I expect to make it - after that, a lot of good but not great teams and it's a bit of a crapshoot

GBR in an oddly soft position thanks to being already qualified on both sides of the house. Perhaps what's most impressive is they hit that score while not actually being THAT clean. big take aways so far - Max is back and how - and Hepworth could very well be pushing his way on to the plane - Jarman is safe on the plane but it's going to be edgy for James hall, especially if Joe Fraser comes back with form. I think Tulloch has to go unless injured simply because when he DOES hit rings, it's a massive uplift to the team. On the Irish side, Rhys remains amazing, and one of Ireland's best medal bets come Paris in any sport. Dom Cunningham and Eamon Montgomery will be more than a little disappointed.

Yeah, New Zealand took that defeat to France personally... that said, so bad was tonight's capitulation that I half wonder if they are deliberately targeting the French match...

Bet GBR are wishing baseball was still in the Games now. Of course, when Cricket comes in, watch GBR screw up qualification!

What it DOES do is give maximum flexibility for selectors in terms of the relays At this stage, a lot depends on Peaty, but if he comes back even 90-95% of the athlete he was prior to 2022, then the following relays are actual medal hopes : Mens 4 x 100 freestyle Men's 4 x 100 medley Men's 4 x 200 freestyle Mixed 4 x 100 medley Women's 4 x 200 freestyle (at a push if all the planets align) Of course, they still have to qualify most of these relays, of which the 4 x 100 free is the sticky one - they HAVE to go and at least register a heat time in the 2024 Worlds for that one - they may well already have the times in the others. There are a handful of juniors/near juniors who they'd bring if they had the least cop on, Blocksidge the most obvious, but I'd argue Leah Schlossen, Oscar Bilbao and Phoebe Cooper too. women's side remains weak, but most of the new shoots at this moment seem to be on that side, perhaps for the first time in a wee while...

Delighted to see the Ryder in Italy, and it's good for the game. For all its flaws, Golf is quite a good game for showing the beauty and grandeur of a countryside. And that suits Italy fine! The excitement of even the early stages of Ryder cup, compared to almost any other golf competition, also reinforces my view that we desperately need to bring a matchplay element into the Olympics. There are ways you could do it in singles, but the better idea may be to introduce a high-speed fourball format (say over 9 holes) for men's and women's pairs, and perhaps a foursomes for mixed... 9 hole format - every hole is worth 2 points, so W2, Draw/share hole 1, lose 0 - within the match, 10 pts wins the match - if you win the last hole while Dormi, you'll get 11 pts, and still win. If it's 9 pts each after 9, golden point is simple 1 shot nearest the pin tie breaker on nearest part 3... You could have 4 groups of 4 pairs, doing 2 9 hole group matches back to back in the morning (1-9 and 10-18), and the third that afternoon. Top 2 in each group to QF next morning, again 9 holes, semi finals, again 9 holes, medal match that afternoon 18 holes (19 points to win, or score on the traditional method) In group, h-2-h is tiebreaker, if three pairs tie on 4 points (2wins, 1 loss) then goes to score difference (10-6, 10-4, 9-10* would beat 10-8, 4-10, 10-8). Whole thing could be done in two days. Following two days do the foursomes as plain knockout, no groups, again on 9 hole format. So, basically, singles on strokeplay, pairs on matchplay, with pairs seedings based on final totals in strokeplay. Strokeplay 72 holes no cut, matchplay - "powerplay" 9-hole format.

Ain increasingly strong argument for making membership of a specific anti-doping pool a criterion to participation - if the size of India makes it impossible, as it seems to be, to run anti-doping in a competent fashion, perhaps the only answer is to reduce the task to a small registered pool of athletes, and anyone else cannot compete internationally.

At European level at least, I distinctly remember an improvement in your women's 4 x 100 team - and suspect your current strength in women's 400 and 400 hurdles has similar roots.

It's odd, in a way, that the Commies, which would be a perfect trial run style event to show the IOC it can do this stuff, is kind of dying, when both South Africa and India could really do with that chance to show its stuff for future Olympics consideration (as Manchester CWG definitely helped UK fix its rather bad reputation back in the day).

I could certainly live with a Poland Games - would represent a coming of age for what is a rather large European country (just shy of 40 million odd citizens puts it well into the Spain category and only marginally smaller than UK, France, Italy) - and, from personal experience, I think the world would be stunned at how beautiful parts of it are - a great way to introduce itself to the world, in a way. Good luck (though if India bid, you might need it!)

Abbsolutely - but as in cycling, the trick is convincing your super-dom that super-doming is the way to go. In this case, the strong possibility of a relay gold (really, I think its France v GBR) may be enough to convince him to set his individual ambitions aside for the 'greater good' - but Brownlee is a very strong swimmer, even now, realistically, is he going to be able to help Yee?

A third man willing to domestique would be a godsend to Yee.

Yes, it's these that still give Brownlee the edge as things currently stand for me - He has always been slightly sharper over sprint/relay distances.

If GTB is fit, she goes, imho. She is absolutely world class, a really strong relay runner, and gives a different kind of threat to Beaugrand than Potter - although Potter has really come into her own this year, regardless of Taylor Brown's troubles. I think , IF FIT, Potter and Taylor Brown, both gold medal threats, both go. It's 'woman 3' were the intrigue is. Coldwell is the one closest to her 'peak', and is a proven relay athlete. Jess is definitely an elder stateswoman, but again, is a proven relay athlete. her winter will tell all. Waugh looks to be possibly the next big thing. along with Lombardi, and Waugh broke both Lombardi and Beaugrand yesterday - which makes her, perhaps more than Jess or Sophie, an individual medal threat. Given we know that a fit GTB can take Beaugrand at Olympic distance, have learned this year that Potter can too, and now have strong evidence Waugh can in the right race... But Waugh is not proven in the relay. If GTB is fit, there is an argument that Waugh or Coldwell or Learmonth are better relay bets than Potter, who really is an endurance based athlete. I think Fullagar and Matthias are likely going to have to wait to 2028, where I suspect Waugh will be #1. So FWIW, if GTB is fit...I think it's Potter, GTB, Waugh. If GTB is not such a sure bet but is still going, maybe Potter GTB, Coldwell (coldwell being a stronger relay bet)...and obviously if GTB doesn't recover, Potter, Waugh and either Coldwell or Learmonth.

Miami started winding down in the middle of the third, and stopped the car entirely in the middle of the 4th. They could have had 80 tonight, easy.