Three more sports have released their qualification systems for Paris 2024: Sailing, Surfing, and Tennis. This means that just five sports have systems left to announce: Aquatics, Athletics, Football and Table Tennis still haven’t published anything, while Cycling’s Mountain Bike discipline has had its system published, but the other four disciplines have not. GB Games will look at the three systems, how they’ve changed from 2020, and what the British prospects of qualifying are.
Sailing
Sailing is a strong sport for Team GB, with three golds, one silver, and one bronze in 2020 (out of ten events). Sailing has taken a reduction in quotas from 2020, with 165 athletes per gender (down from 175). There are still ten events. On the men’s side, the Windsurfer, Dinghy, and Skiff events survive, but the Dinghy (Heavyweight) and Two Person Dinghy events are gone, to be replaced by a Kite event. On the women’s side, the Two Person Dinghy event is replaced by the Kite, which joins the surviving Windsurfer, Dinghy, and Skiff events and there is also a new Mixed Dinghy event to join the Mixed Multihull event. There are ten events in total; four each for men and women and two mixed events. This wipes out two events in which GB won gold medals in 2020 (The Men’s Dinghy (Heavyweight) and the Women’s Two Person Dinghy).
There will be one boat per NOC per event. The first event worth consideration are the 2023 World Sailing Championships (The Hague, NED, 10-20 Aug 2023) which will qualify a large number of boats: 16 in the Men’s/Women’s Dinghy, 11 in the Windsurfing, 10 in the Skiff, 9 in the Mixed Multihull and 8 in the other events. The 2024 ILCA World Championships (various locations, dates TBC) will qualify 7 boats each in the Men’s and Women’s Dinghy event. Various Continental Qualifiers (dates and locations TBC) in 2023 and 2024 will earn one boat per continent in each event, the exception being the Men’s and Women’s Dinghy events which will have three boats earned in Asia and two in the other continents. In the 2024 Last Chance Regatta (dates and location TBC) five boats will be earned in the Windsurfing and Kite events, four in the Mixed Multihull event and three in all others. One spot in the Men’s/Women’s Windsurfing and Dinghy are reserved for NOCs that have not qualified in this Sport yet and are on the Emerging Nations Programme: obviously GB is not an “Emerging Nation” so is ineligible. The hosts are also guaranteed one spot per event (with unused spots being allocated to the Last Chance Regatta) and there will be two spots per gender for Universality decided by the Tripartite Commission.
There are a few differences from 2020, although much remains to be confirmed. In 2020, GB, alongside Spain and hosts Japan, were the only country to qualify a full squad. Not doing so again in 2024 will be a big disappointment as we are a powerful team in this sport, topping the medal table in five of the last six Games.
Surfing
From a sport where we are dominant to one in which we have no hope, Surfing responds as an additional sport with its two Shortboard events (one for each gender), and with an increased quota too: 24 per gender (at most two per NOC, which could be bumped up to three in certain cases) rather than 20. There is one spot for the host and one Universality place, meaning there are 22 qualification spots per gender. The pathway is different for men and for women. Ten spots for men and eight for women will be earned at the World Surf League Championship Tour (WSL CT) from January-September 2023 (exact dates and locations TBC). Continental representation will come from May 2023 ISA World Surfing Games (WSG) (exact dates and location TBC) for all continents bar the Americas: one spot per continent, for a total of five, and five spots for men and seven for women at the 2024 ISA WSG (dates and location TBC). Finally, the highest rated team (that is to say, NOC) at the 2024 ISA WSG and the 2022 ISA WSG (Huntington Beach, USA, Sep 17-24 2022) will earn one spot each, which does not count to the NOC quota meaning that these NOCs can qualify a maximum of three places instead of two.
British surfing is not completely devoid of talent, but it would be cheeky to ask for a universality place considering our strength in the games as a whole. I think it is basically impossible we get a place in this games, but it is a sport where we may develop in the future.
Tennis
Tennis returns from 2020 with the same events (a Men’s and Women’s Singles event, and a Men’s, Women’s, and Mixed Doubles event) and the same quotas (86 per gender). There are three host places and one universality place per gender, with a maximum of six athletes per NOC per gender (a maximum of four in singles, two teams in Men’s/Women’s doubles and one team in mixed doubles). There will be 64 players per event in Singles. 56 places will be earned from the Rankings of 10 June 2024, there will be one host place, and six “Final Qualification places”. Four of these will be earned at continental events, although none of these are in Europe. The final two will be reserved for Olympic Gold Medal or Grand Slam winners that have not qualified (confirmed on 12 June 2024). Finally, there will be one universality place.
In Men’s/Women’s Doubles there are 32 teams each. One place is for the host country, and the remaining 31 are chosen by the rankings. Firstly, the top 10 doubles athletes based on the ranking of 10 June 2024 will qualify (this may be less than 10 teams if one athlete’s partner is also in the top 10, or more if a few athletes are tied for 10th). The remaining spots until the 24th team (or more if the quota of 86 places is not yet reached) will be filled based on Combined Doubles Ranking. Any other places will be based on ranking, but chosen with priority to teams with both athletes in the singles event. In Mixed Doubles, there are sixteen teams: one host country team, and fifteen teams selected based on Combined Doubles Ranking of 10 June 2024.
In 2020, we had one singles athlete per gender and two men’s doubles teams, which was not really a great set. We do have three men in the ATP top 56 of the rankings currently, but just one woman in the WTA top 100. We should get a good (if not full) compliment of players in 2024, although injuries and late withdrawals are quite common in this sport.
So there we are, three sports: one where we look for a full team, one where we look for a decent squad, and one where we are not expecting anything. Just five sports to go, and remember, qualification starts on 26 June with the Triathlon World Championships in Montreal, Canada.
GB Games 