They did show all of the women's race. I think there might have been a mix up with the red button channel, as I couldn't see it listed on the TV guide page and had to actually press the red button itself and find it that way.

The BBC did show the women's race live, but not on a broadcast channel (e.g. Freeview 601 is the broadcast red button channel) so you needed either an internet connected TV - where pressing red takes you to the suite of BBC TV applications (building these is my day job!) - or you could watch on the BBC sport website.

This clears that up, the freeview red button channel is the channel I was referring to, there obviously was some way of watching the women's race live via BBC.

Not at first glance when I got home from work on freeview though!

Ouch, doesn't sound fun!

I do expect fairly substantial changes to the way NOCs qualify spots for Tokyo. I don't know if ITU has a figure in mind for the number of teams it wants in the mixed relay in Tokyo, but I bet it is "as big as possible." As a good starting point there were 20 entries in Hamburg 2 weeks ago. If you were to just look at the initial qualification list for Rio, there were 13 countries that qualified at least 2 women and 2 men. If you keep all the other qualifications the same, except restrict to a maximum of 2 entries per NOC, then 4 more countries would theoretically add teams bringing the total to 17. Of course the total list of NOCs in the world within a prayer of fielding a relay team can't be more than about 30. So maybe aiming to field and entry list of 15 +/-2 would be a good target for Tokyo. At any rate, my point is that I expect the Tokyo qualification standards from ITU to be somewhat structured around qualifying relays and individuals, and I would be shocked if it isn't more complicated than the Rio standards.

Athletics relay finals, swimming relay finals all only have 8 teams and as there are no heats and the tri mixed relay is a pure final, maybe the number of countries who qualify 2+2 or more will be the entered number, they may not be aiming for max teams but quality. To water down the standard in the individual event by allowing top countries less athletes to make way for unqualified athletes to fill relay spots would destroy this race. There is already a huge standard drop in the first athlete to miss a spot in some quality countries to the athlete from a less competitive nation who gets to race.

stockholm start list is up and both brownlees are on it. is AB really doing it?

Idk if those are maybe the place holder entries and the federation can sub someone in for AB. But would be a pretty stellar field if he races. I thought I also saw a few British women maybe coming back. I sure am curious how fast Duffy is really running. I guess we will see...

I would suspect that part of the qualifying criteria for the MTR at Tokyo will be tied to The MTR Worlds, to encourage teams to race it, and not to sandbag it with their C team. Probably a combo of auto qualifiers (possibly top 10 at MTR worlds) and the rest based on rankings (likely with a continental allocation, since that seems to be the IOC's MO). In terms of how the nations themselves select their athletes, that will be more tricky, and what the rules around team size is (like the "relay pools" they have in track, where you might have 6 named individuals, from which you can make up your relay, and there you can sub people out between rounds...). I suspect that it will likely be a max of 6 athletes in the pool, of which a max 1 male and 1 female would not be on the individual start list (so countries that qualify more limited spots in the individual race, may have a smaller eligible pool to draw for...).

again, triathlon is not adding any additional athletes (even though it is adding another event) so there will not be "pools" of 6 people. track has it worse -- the mixed 4x4 was added in track and track has to reduce its headcount.

AB wasn't ever on the start lists for edmonton or montreal so him being on the stockholm start list must mean something. hopefully he races.

In the individual events, Teams have always been able to name an alternate, and they often travel to the Olympics, just may not get to compete. I assume these individuals might make up the extra bodies in the relay pools, without actually changing the head count.


There's less gaming of start lists than the one post suggests. Countries, based on rankings have the number of spots they can register athletes in for WTS events. Up until the elite briefing they could make changes to that, so they could add people, or sub out someone who wasn't racing. So if his name is on there, it is not as a placeholder, there at least is a thought of him racing, that doesn't mean that he may not later pull out... Johnny was on the startlist for Hamburg and even showed up to Hamburg and didn't withdraw until the last minute...

I think I need to clarify some things for you. First of all, while the final procedures for allocating olympic spots for both the individual and relay events in Tokyo has not been announced yet (expect this information over the winter), we know that the total number of athletes will not exceed 55 women and 55 men. These numbers are inclusive of every individual entered in either or both races and is determined by the IOC. Final entries for prior Olympic games have been due a few weeks prior to the start of the games, late substitutions are not permitted. Therefore it is the expectation that all relay competitors will be entered in the individual race. Secondly, entry to WTS level events has a different protocol. There are many layers of rules to this, of which I am not entirely familiar. Basically countries submit entry request 1 month before the race and based on ITU points rankings the ITU grants entries. There are limits to how many individuals a country may enter. A country may substitute 1 athlete who was granted entry into the race based on ranking with another athlete. For instance: UK triathlon might submit Alistair Brownlee's name for Stockholm because he has a high points list ranking (25th in this case) even though AB never plans to enter the race. Then they could substitute in another athlete in his place. For instance they might choose a junior with a low ranking or someone who has been away from ITU racing and does not have many points like Tim Don. (In fact when I look at the points list I think they will sub in Marc Austin who is ranked 65 or Gordon Benson who is ranked 92nd.) I hope this clears some things up.

 

Pretty sure AB was on start list for at least one other race this season, when they first went up, but was removed and Benson took his place. This may be the case again this time, or maybe he is planning to race. The start list for Stockholm has changed a bit already since first went up but he is still there, although UK don't seem to be as quick as some other countries at subbing in and out, have noticed some countries prefer to do it in first days.

this is a nice summary of where things stand. there is zero chance that countries will be able to game the relay by holding out athletes from the individual races to have them fresher for the relay (like what canada did in hamburg this year). if you are doing the relay in tokyo, you also are doing the individual race.

your premonition re the UK in stockholm was spot on as AB is gone and austin is in. no benson (yet).

Alistair is no longer on the Stockholm list so I guess that's a no.

Hugh

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Genetics load the gun, lifestyle pulls the trigger.