Busy weekend of action with Olympic champions Jessica Ennis-Hill, Greg Rutherford and Christine Ohuruogu all in action at the World Championships in Beijing, plus Olympic quota spots secured in modern pentathlon, show jumping and canoe sprint. Here's our review of the last 24 hours:
Olympic champion Greg Rutherford secured comfortable qualification to the men's long jump final at the athletics World Championships in Beijing. Rutherford fouled his first attempt but then jumped 8.25 metres, ten centimetres beyond the required mark, to secure his final berth, where the Olympic, Commonwealth and European champion will look to complete a rare set of titles. However, there was disappointment for key rival, American Marquis Dendy, who didn't progress. “You can only jump against whoever is there," said Rutherford. "For me as we found in the Olympic final there were certain names that didn’t make it and I walked away with the gold medal. That’s the way it is in track and field – you’re not always going to get the guys that have been doing it all year, I’ve just got to do what I do. Forget (Marquis) Dendy (failed to qualify) at the moment, Jeff Henderson opened with a fantastic first round (8.36m) so it’s going to be a very exciting final. “I’m in a good place – I thought I upset a few people fouling in the first one to follow suit what I did in London a few weeks back just to get people talking. We’ll see what happens.” Defending 400m world champion Christine Ohuruogu also progressed, winning her heat in comfortable style, clocking 51.01 secs. Team-mate Anyika Onoura, still new to one lap running, clocked a 51.14 sec personal best to also advance. Holly Bradshaw, on her injury comeback, jumped a season's best 4.55m to progress to Wednesday's women's pole vault final. “It was so amazing to be back out there just competing. It was great - I came in expecting to qualify for the final, but the way I qualified was amazing," she said. “I surprised myself after the long two years I’ve had. I’m not sure where the confidence is coming from – in the past few weeks I’ve had some great training sessions. “I’m confident that I am fit, healthy and jumping well, so you never know what can happen in the final.”
London 2012’s iconic gold will always take some beating but Jess Ennis-Hill says being crowned world champion 13 months after giving birth is right up there with the best moments of her career. It was touch and go whether the 29-year-old would even compete in Beijing having only returned to training in the Autumn. But she produced a series of clinical performances to take the title in just her first major competition since she won the Olympic title back in 2012. The winning performance came in the 800m where she took victory in her heat in 2:10.13 and finished with 6,669 points overall – Canada’s Brianne Theisen-Eaton 115 points behind in second. “This is definitely one of the greatest moments of my career, I still can’t believe it,” said Ennis-Hill. Read more here
Coach Bobby Crutchley insisted there was room for improvement as England's men head into a decisive match with Spain at the hockey European Championships in London.
Crutchley's side slipped to a 2-0 defeat to Holland, who progressed to the semi-finals after goals from Mirco Pruijser and Constantijn Jonker.
“We will look at our performance and work on the areas we need to improve," said Crutchley.
"Sometimes being a coach is difficult as telling them to pass the ball better is not particularly useful. It’s not so much a tactical change we need. They know what they need to do, they’re experienced players and they’ll be keen to improve against Spain.”
“We’re disappointed to lose. It was a tight game we could have got something out of it but our performance was not where I wanted it to be. We created some chances but the quality of our passing wasn’t good enough. That’s something we usually pride ourselves on so it’s especially disappointing.
"We defended quite well but if you give the ball away too often you’re always going to struggle. They took their chances well and they were defensively very organised. We helped them a bit as we didn’t use the ball well but they’re hard to play against and that was the case.”
Kate French and Joe Choong secured Olympic quota places at the modern pentathlon European Championships in Bath. French finished eighth in the women's final while Choong was seventh in the men's event. “It’s amazing," said French. “I never thought I would be able to do it. I always had a goal in mind but I was average all day so I really had to pull it out for the combined to be able to get myself up there. "Going into the last few laps I knew I was in a good position and I just had to stay calm, but I felt like I kept my cool today so I’m very happy. Rio is still a long way off so I will just have to stay strong next year and keep up my good performances." Meanwhile, French, Samantha Murray and Freyja Prentice's individual performances secured the women's team title.
Double world champion Keri-anne Payne won the 10km open water test event for the 2016 Rio Olympics. Payne, who won Olympic silver in 2008, led a 15-strong field in the race, held at Copacabana Beach. Brazil's Ana Marcela Cunha was second, with Isabelle Harle of Germany third.
Performance director Dan Hughes believes it is job done for Great Britain after gaining Olympic qualification at the FEI European Championships in Aachen – but admits a medal would have been nice. The final day saw the showjumping competition reach its conclusion with Joe Clee and Ben Maher both in action. Maher was first up aboard Diva II but the pair saw two fences fall and finished with eight faults. Clee meanwhile was riding Utamaro d'Ecaussines knocked a fence dowen in the first round and headed into round two with four faults, finishing with a single fence down and a single time penalty that put them down in 15th place. "Obviously Ben and Joe gave it their best shot today but it wasn’t to be their day," said Hughes. "Ben on his young horse did the right thing to save it for another day and Joe has had an outstanding Championships. "They just didn't get the clear round they needed today, but that doesn't take away from what Ben, Michael, Jessica and Joe have achieved this week. "We came here to gain Olympic qualification which we've achieved and in the process, very nearly won a medal as well."
Lani Belcher says it’s been a mixed bag at the Canoe Sprint World Championships in Milan after she claimed silver in Sunday’s K1 5000m. Belcher was disappointed not to come away with gold after she finished almost four seconds shy of Maryna Litvinchuk of Belarus. However there was plenty to cheer as she took second and the women’s K4 500m also secured their spot at Rio 2016. There was also another Rio place for Belcher and K2 500m partner Angela Hannah who provisionally qualified pending official confirmation. "I'm pleased to come away with a medal although it would have been nice to get the gold,” said Belcher. "I think we've had an up and down regatta, to be honest. For the girls the main focus was to come away with six athlete quota places." Read more here
India Lee finished 26th in her first ever triathlon World Series race in Stockholm while Matt Sharp came home 36th in the men's race. © Sportsbeat 2015