mpjmcevoy

More so than most races, even the Worlds, the Olympics pushes a;lliances - no team is big enough to actually control the race - GBR came the closest in 2012, and might have pulled it off if they could have got one more team to work with them, but they were all too afraid of Cav. Most of the race, especially for the small teams, will be about reacting, and picking wheels, and trying not to use up matches. The Parcours is quite punchy, might favour an Ardennes rider, and ben Healy certainly fits that category - he has not been QUITE on last years form, but he's still riding well, and is due a good day. I do have a hunch that while the favourite is probably going to be MvdP (he won't be tired out from the Tour, nor split over two disciplines like pidcock), a key wheel to watch will be Aliphillipe - he's bound to play the home heroics at some point, and he might be the guy to follow for the break of the day - and in the Olympics - the break of the day always has a shot. Obviously a lot depends on Pogacar's form post Tour as he obviously excells at these hilly classic style courses - the inclusion of cobbles on some of those hills favours MvdP, I think, though.

I think such a large number of bronzes is the classic sign of caution. In recent cycles, GBR have usually been a little gold heavy, rather than bronze heavy. I think 20 golds are well within reach.

Ireland goes into this Games with more genuine shots at gold than possibly ever before - but very few, if any, nailed on, or close to nailed on in a 2012 Katie Taylor/2020 Lightweight double scull kind of way McCleneghan is a genuine gold shout, but he needs to absolutely nail his routine and hope Whitlock doesn't. If he nails the execution, he should be, in at least, silver. If Whitlock nails his, his D score is just to high to cope with. Of course both could fail and let in the Armenian or even the Jordanian, but it's still a strong shout. In the boxing, none of the fighters are first seed, but several are seeds, and several more look good dark horses. Could very easily get two golds in boxing alone. could very easily get none (you'll note a pattern) it's hard to gauge where Wiffen is in the 800 and 1500. He must have a gold shot; he may also well finish fifth. Rhasidat looks in superb form and the 400 is not as stacked as it might be, but there are still three or four formidable performers, and I think gold is a bit of a long shot - it is not, however, beyond the bounds of possibility. We always have a shot on the horses, especially in jumping and eventing, and there are genuine gold chances, but only chances, in the rowboats and the sailboats. Lisa Gillespie also has a puncher's chance in the Omnium, imho. Men's rugby sevens, likewise. that spread of chances is very unusual for Ireland. So, yeah, we could win 4 golds, or even more. We could also win damn all! Gotta love the 'Lympics

Disasters happen (see GBR rowing Tokyo 2020) but the point is very much that there is no real analysis to justify the disaster prediction here, just toting up medals and then artificially boosting France, without genuinely analysing where the undoubted home bonus might actually play in this instance. Like, the 2024 worlds aquatics results are broadly meaningless - and yes, 2023 Worlds are also too long ago to be entirely reliable - guess what, this games pool will be a little less predictable than usual - there's no sign of analysis here though - even basics like comparing trials results between competitive trials The idea of GBR taking six straight golds in rowing, and no minor medals at all, is risible. Not as risible in getting medals in events and with athletes not actually in the Games (mixed skeet, jess Gadirova), but still, pretty funny.

I think that is PRECISELY the 'research and analysis' in this instance, as it has been before. Which is all harmless and good fun...except they sell it. And that is not on. We got to look at this for free, so no harm, no foul, but earlier in the cycle they sold it - and clearly the 'changes' in their analysis over time that allowed further sales was simply updating world champs results.

And all....2 of yours. Well, we don't really need to worry about Sedjati, WADA will no doubt take care of him soon enough.

Ever get the feeling the 'research and analysis' on this product at gracenote is pretty much non-existant?

Apparently GBR are going to win only a single medal in artistic gymnastics. That medal will come from the unselected, and injured Jessica Gadirova. They will, however, have an unprecedented domination of the rowing - 6 golds, no other medals. 3 swimming medals including no golds - Mens 4 x 2 only getting silver, and no medal, at all for Peaty. GBR are, however, going to claim a silver in the mixed skeet, which given they aren't qualified for it, is very encouraging. Yeah, I think there's a good reason Gracenote don't tend to release this detail earlier or wholescale. I was always aware their 'predictions' were pretty lame, though good fun. What i never realised is just how limited their research and algorithms were. We could all do this in about an hour, indeed Totallympics do (collating world champs medals in each event) and probably do better by simply checking the startlists on top. How much did this stuff cost to buy a few weeks back?

Odd, I though Vicky might find form, but Bianca in the 200 seems to be doing better. worth noting some improvement in Jessie Knight too. The one thing GBR has in its favour is depth. It has no Bol, No Syd, No Rhasidat..but it has a lot of very good 400 women coming into decent form at roughly the same time - it's a pity that neither Mary yemi nor Ama has quite kicked on this year, but MYJ may still show, Jode looks actually in ok shape, and the Nielsens and Amber look pretty strong. If GB #1 Amber doesn't lose too much to the superstars in 4 or 5 teams, the Neilseens can probably hold their own against everyone else bar USA, and then there's a medal chance depending on who 'man 4' is. FWIW I always like hurdlers on the relay, because they're rarely faster, but they're often stronger at the point the races start resembling middle distance

But as the old Irish saying goes, we must live in hope, should we die in despair. We never win a large number of medals - our sporting landscape historically has been almost anti-Olympic - horseracing, GAA, pre-Olympic golf, Men's soccer, Rugby (15s), and the one or two times we did well, Our swimmer ended up pissing pure Jamesons, and our horse was a junkie. We had the odd excellent boxer, it's true, and a history in middle distance athletics that had seemed to be just that, history. And we were understandbly uncomfortable with the pretty benign but still there jingoism of our big and frankly rather successful Olympic neighbour (hell, I'm part of that too with my odd split Olympic loyalties). It's easy to love the Olympics when you're good at 'em Suddenly, on a much smaller (obviously) scale, with some basic state funding along the GB model, we've discovered we can do some of this stuff. We can row a rowboat, we can sail a sailboat, we can paddle a ... paddleboat, so long as its downhill, we can swing around a horse as well as ride them, we're no' bad at the oul 7's, or with a hockey stick (give some of our lads a hurling stick and watch the mayhem!), we're still good at punching people, our girls even more so than our boys (like we didn't secretly know that for decades!), but we have a lad who is not bad at kicking them too, and we've found a number of good swimmers, none of whom so far are burning the arse out of the test tubes they have to pee in. It's wonderful, and some of them are going to break our hearts, and we need to embrace that. We must live in hope, should we die in despair.

We may smile, but the sheer jammy luck of a non-gymnastics nation like Ireland happening upon a world class gymnast of Rhys quality, who partially benefitted from the British system which itself GBR jammied into thanks to the stand alone brilliance, really, of Beth Tweddle and to a lesser extent Louis Smith is off the charts. Now Ireland has a handful of strong gymnasts, some adopted, some home grown. Having already gone through the rubbing the eyes in disbelief stage with Britain discovering the sport, to find my beloved Ireland going through the same process is wonderfully barmy. So if Rhys wants to train by hanging off the GPO, that' what we let him do!

the answer to that is a limited number of runners-up qualifying for a last 16. if you have a weird number of players, even better. start on the basis of 12 groups of 4, with groups adjusted to 3 for having less than 48 players. 12 group winners, 12 seeds. from there there are any number of ways to get to 16. in this case : 41 = 5 groups of 4, 7 groups of three. Put top 5 seeds in groups of 4. GRoups of three, winners progress. Groups of 4 winners progress and runners up progress- the two lowesr ranked runners up play for the last, last 16 place (which mathematically can never be 1 and 2 seed)

I see Amelie Blockridge won the Euro Jr 5km open water today, backing up her 1500, 800 Jr double a couple of weeks ago...

Add just one more quota, you can have 14 groups of three with byes for seeds 1 and 2. Much more intuitive.

Realistically, who are the genuine individual medal chances?

Stop. It.

It SHOULD be Carl Hestor and Helen Glover. It WILL be Tom Daley and AN Other, quite likely Dujardin though personally I'd quite like it to Becky Downie. I would have said Jade Jones had a big shout, but... Other outside bet on men's side is Max Whitlock. Prediction, CLOSING ceremony will be Adam Peaty and Emma Finucane.

litchfield is already listed for 4x1 free heats, as are anderson and okora in w4x1 and mcmillan in 4x1 and 4x2. they do seem to be treating joe like a liability! Whittle's solo race is fortunate, but is clearly to create maximum flexibility in relays. Guy is intriguing, but he does seem to have found some mojo

Some interesting withdrawals and selections - no individual swims for Freya Anderson, Joe Litchfield or Eva Okoro - the last one perhaps the most surprising, since Alex Cahoon and Jacob Whittle both get individual swim , no doubt with relay eligibility in mind. Litchfield, McMillan is named already for mens 4 x 1 heat, Anderson and Okora for women's 4 x 1 and 4 x 2. James guy gets the individual swim in 100 butterfly. wilby pulls out of 200 breast, Laura Stephens scratchs 100, Angharad Evans gets an individual swim Assuming Anderson is simply not 100% recovered, every single choice - bar evans who is rewarded obviously for form - seems to be picked with relays in mind. Possibly a bit hard on Okoro

It's often oddly in the nature of these things that the second seed has a better OVERALL draw than the top seed, until you get the semis, albeit the top seed gets the pest pickings of their half - equally the fourth seed often has a pig of a draw - given some artificial french 4th seeds, that quarter is likely to be 'unpredictable'

Yep, that's exactly the order I got, which would give us the following main draw: Obviously the repechage for bronze depends who wins the semifinals. now, we could both be wrong !! but that's my reading of that class. If it went entirely to seeding (just for argument) the repechage would IRL v KAZ, AUS v SEN - followed by IRL v ESP, AUS v FRA/KOR with ESP and FRA/KOR getting bronzes Thank god TKD is played on mats, not paper...

This is, em.....this is not good. I appreciate UKAD went to the trouble of getting independent medical advice, but the situation stinks. Moreover, I doubt I'm entirely alone in wondering what the hell is wrong with Jade that some clearly fairly significant psychiatric assertions come into play - not psychological, psychiatric. And are such concerns commensurate with the lass competing at elite level if they are so disabling of her cognitive state?

I wouldn't quibble with that. Decent chance they make the Mixed final without Adeleke - with only 16 teams, and some teams not putting out their top guns, has to be possible - if they make it, Adeleke gives them a three and a half second upgrade, right out the gat, which hopefully puts them somewhere in the mix. women's 4 x 4 is more a case of, it's great to be here, enjoy the experience - though if the somehow wangle a final without Adeleke (tall order) - a Healy, Adeleke, Becker, Maudsley line up is not awful by any stretch, and would embarrass nobody. In truth, I have a sneaky feeling the GBR women's 4 might do something - I think their depth is underestimated.

Possibly, though in my mind it speaks more to resting Adeleke and Mawdsley as much as possible - or even not running Adeleke at all. If I were guessing, I'd say there's a genuine outside medal shout in the mixed, especially if other nations don't send out their best - in that scenario, if Ireland somehow get to the final with Adeleke, she could slot back in for a major go. There's no realistic chance of a medal in the Women's, so I can imagine Adeleke could skip that altogether, and Mawdsley could skip the heat and hope they sneak in eighth, come back in for the final. Adeleke's coach could try and pull her out of all relay action, we'll have to wait and see - but fundamentally, i suspect almost all of them will get at least a heat at some point.

It was also a paced WR. Faith is a roaring favourite, possibly second only to Mondo. but you never quite know what can happen in a 1500 without pacemakers. It quite often can turn into an 800 metre runners race, despite being full of natural 5000 metre runners, and other athletes in the final are apt to upset tactical plans depending on their reading of their chances... Hull, Muir, Mageaan, Hassan, Tsegay, Welteji will all want a 'true run' race because they're stronger. some of the Americans might prefer a more messy tactical affair