Edvid

Felicitations to Mathilde Gros - six years after that mad-fast flying 200 junior record, she's come of age. Winning on home soil in the next Olympic velodrome isn't a bad place to win your first rainbow jersey.

Ganna does 3:59.636 WR in the final!! Holy shit!! Perhaps he will park that event now. No future IP he does will top that even if he goes faster.

That sub-4 IP is getting ever closer. OK, Ashton Lambie did one in high-altitude Aguascalientes last year but if memory serves Ganna previously mentioned wanting to ride one without altitude assistance. Like all marquee road-trackies he'll continue to focus more on the road in due course, but even after today's final he won't be finished with individual pursuits yet (unlike Shoi Matsuda, Milan won't be overlapped (worth up to 2 seconds) unless he has a mare). Here's a thought - since he won his first WCh IP six years ago, Ganna is now one full lap quicker.

If Glasgow 2023 gets the Yorkshire 2019 weather they'd be better off with surfboards.

It was Rob Hatch and Michael Hutchinson on comms duty overnight. Whoever named the Australian state of New South Wales obviously had today's winners in mind, seeing as they hail from Pontyclun and Aberaeron if my Googling is up to snuff. Though Aberaeron - on the western coast - is perhaps south Wales in the broad sense only.

Results page not linked on the main site ATM, but it's now accessible to the public.

Someone else (either the POA or their badminton fed) has picked up the slack for expenses, so the Pakistani badminton team will travel to Birmingham after all. Full contingent listed here.

Strictly speaking the list in that article refers to sports the Pakistan Sports Board (in effect the national government) have chosen to fund, with badminton having been promised funding until the last minute. The badminton team can still participate if they acquire funding from elsewhere, but I accept that's not likely. [N.B. Cricket is not listed either, but I presume their funding comes from the Pakistan Cricket Board]

Broadly correct, though I'll add that NI is also a Home Nation and the seven NI judoka are both ROI (five) and UK (two) registered w.r.t. IJF affiliation. Even the Hawkes sisters represent one or the other in standard IJF competitions.

Ah, just beat me to it. On a separate note and joined the Commonwealth last weekend; probably too late for a Games debut in Birmingham but there's plenty of time to organise a team for the following edition in Victoria State.

Yesterday, the IOC decided the IBA would (again) play no part in the Olympic boxing tournament or the qualification process. Which means the boxing QS will have to be revised.

Turns out this isn't the first time the FIG decreed Irish-registered gymnasts (& officials) NI-ineligible. They previously did so w.r.t. the 2018 Games but later agreed to a compromise (proposed by Gymnastics Ireland and British Gymnastics) that only gymnasts would be permitted in the Games. As for these Games, the FIG are currently sticking to their guns and have offered two options: * Remove the CWG from the list of FIG-registered competitions (at the CGF's request; a non-starter at this late stage, so say CGF officials) * Athletes change their FIG license nationality registration (i.e. switch to a British licence) GI are appealing to the FIG to change their minds again, though I wouldn't be surprised if this dispute ended up before CAS.

Confirms that World Sailing are sticking with the quadrennial all-Olympic-classes World Championships (which can be in mid-cycle year or pre-Olympic year; it's the latter on this occasion) as the primary qualification regatta. With the exception of the 2024 ILCA 6/7 editions (for women/men only, in that order), none of the separate WCh will have any quota places on offer.

Regarding the second tranche of sports at Victoria 2026, the Sydney Morning Herald offers some insight into which sports may or may not make the cut. https://www.smh.com.au/sport/wrestling-or-men-s-cricket-stalemate-on-new-sports-for-2026-commonwealth-games-20220428-p5agu1.html

So far it appears the MTB World Cup in Albstadt will get the wheel rolling - both U23 XCO races take place on the opening day of the qualification window (7 May). As for track cycling - considering how previous qualification systems worked (2-year window that ended with the Olympic-year WCh) before the calendar was completely turned on its head, I wouldn't be surprised if qualification began last weekend in Glasgow on the down low...

They did promise it in a press release on April Fools' Day, as it happens: IOC EB approves Paris 2024 qualification criteria and session schedule and LA28 discipline review - Olympic News (olympics.com)

Sidenote - no new Olympic record for the first time these Games (men's TP still has semis and finals) (No lowland sub-37s since Pyeongchang during this cycle)

37.12 PB for Miho Takagi! Didn't see that coming! That flying lap was damn-near Pyeongchang-level Kodaira stuff.

Of all the (numerous) Olympic records set in SLC 20 years ago, there's essentially just the men's 1000m left now.* Has anyone ever gone sub-1:07.18 on a lowland rink? [* Men's 500m x 2 OR narrowly survived Sochi before the 500m replaced it]

Updated start book here - and the event documents page, where any updates will show up (in case more existing links are taken down) Side note - designation as Ch remains. Best-placed non-English lifter in each weight class qualifies for the 2022 CWG ( gets host quotas).

The competition will still go ahead as competitors from the following 10 nations - - will be exempt from the 10-day quarantine. However... these 10, many of them Commonwealth nations - - are barred outright (as of 3 December) and cannot field teams. What this means for the Commonwealth Championships (to be held in tandem with the Worlds, having been postponed once already) remains to be seen.

I assume there was no seeding for these championships, seeing as Hasanboy Dusmatov, Saken Bibossinov, and Yuberjen Martínez share the same quarter of the flyweight draw... indeed the first two actually fight each other in the first round of 32 (!)

Kosovo not on the startlists, so it appears the Serbian authorities stood firm on not granting them access despite AIBA's statement. A team of refugees (labelled the Fair Chance Team) is listed... well, two of them. The second team is a one-boxer curiosity - it's Fawaz Aborode, a member of Byron Boxing Club who's come through the Scottish system over the past 4 years or so (can't find anything earlier than that on Google) and is otherwise listed as part of the Scottish team (second from right in picture below).

He doesn't have a ProCyclingStats profile, though - which means he's not entered any UCI-classified road races or time trials (even national championships), and presumably has never belonged to a WorldTour or ProSeries trade team either. Both are pre-requisites for would-be road cycling Olympians from mid/high-level nations. As for today, though - timings suggest he's good for a rainbow jersey tonight. He did benefit from a draft towards the end but Jonathan Milan got two catches in his qualifying ride.

Lambie only started riding track in 2017. He isn't a high-level bunch racer on the track and the only Tokyo 2020 event he'd have been picked for would have been the team pursuit (which the US men did not qualify for). As for Ganna - don't forget he also cracked a rib the other day. He was set for last Sunday's Chrono des Nations but pulled out to focus on these championships.