mpjmcevoy

Ridiculously good; and not even all that inflated by the Gran Fondo. Presumably Zoe Backstadt and Ethan Hayter will be back for next year too...

I'd say GBR are VERY pleased with the way things stand. The revelation for them will have been Finucane (and to a lesser extent Capewell); if Marchant continues to gain ground, the GBR sprint team will be a serious player, not something you could say recently. You also have to factor in a couple of missing names here - specifically Ethan Haytor and Zoe Backstedt -and presumably improvements from Marchant and Barker, and for different reasons Archibald. I'm assuming at this point Trott-Kenny is done.

Very, very likely by all accounts. His European track success, and this excellent ride, suggest that while he may not have his father's talent, there's more than enough there to be going on with. Between Wiggo2, Tarling and Aldridge it's been a good couple of races for the young blood.

A number of different countries seem to be approaching with different aims, which will, counterintuitive, make it difficult to gauge what any result here means. But any new competition has to start somewhere, I suppose.

I think that was a typo, inserting {{GER}} instead of {{GBR}}.

Love the idea. Hate the website which is all but unusable.

A Gran Fondo set up will, of its nature, inflate the hosts medal table - it could be suggested that's not terrible for the host - although in this case GB are having a cracking event anyway

Para-cycling, especially at paralympic games level, will by necessity include cyclists of significant athletic prowess, but occasionally sub-optimal technical skills - sometimes, especially in lower classifications, through no fault of their own. That said, I enjoy the World para scratch races immensely, and I really like the fact they've created an omnium event for them which hopefully will be in LA28. Does make me wonder if Athletics could not create a 3 or 4 event 'triathlon/quadrathlon' to give athletes the same opportunity - given the nature of athletics points systems, it should be possible to have multi-class events - say 100,400, and either club, or shot put and javelin for wheelchair or 100, long jump, 800 for VI classes - or 100, javelin, 400, long jump for amputee clasess...

Yes, it was closer to an 'amateur worlds' And don't TALK to me about the idiocy of politics in Irish sports admin!

My point is, when you get into cycling (I was a Tour junkie from the age of about 11, in the mid 1980s) you reasonably quickly get into the lore, because cycling is like that. History really sells. The Olympics doesn't really have that lore on the road because it banned professionals, though, like Tennis, it has changed a bit now to the point were people really do want it, and while it's not quite a Monument, or the Worlds, or a grand tour of course, it has started to really matter - and really irritate some riders because of the odd nature of the field! Similarly, when Tennis first returned, John McEnroe, famous for his patriotism and playing for the US, skipped it because there was no real history - it meant nothing to him. 20 years later, in 2012, he admitted it was one of his single biggest regrets at the Olympics at Wimbledon - where Murray's gold all but meant as much as a grand slam. anyone who has seen Del Potro and Djokovic's tears on Olympic courts know that this weird, underpowered little tournament now matters hugely. You can see the beginnings of the same in golf, with former cynics more or less bought in to it. The olympic TT, I would argue, is at least the equal of the world TT. But the road race isn't the same as the Worlds, though it's pretty important these days.

I liked the original 6 event balance between endurance and sprint - frankly I don't see a good reason to not have a full schedule at the Olympics as you don't really need many/any extra quotas to make it work. I also think it's a mistake to lose the two TTs - Kilo and IP because, together with the road TT they seemed to create a useful coverage of types. The Madison's return was welcome, and the idea of an omnium, a multi-event test, is very attractive - but not three goes at essentially the same test (elimination is slightly different, and unsurprisingly, one of the most popular bits of the omnium). The tempo race may be a legitimate test, but it's boring. simple as that. I'd personally drop it and bring back the IP, and consider a 'reverse' devil - winner of each sprint eliminated with max available points (1st sprint 40, 2nd 38 etc) for a fifth event

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