Sir Bradley Wiggins leads Britain to team pursuit victory on a successful opening day of the Revolution Series, while Andy Murray down defending champion Jo-Wilfried Tsonga at the Rogers Cup. Here’s our review of the last 24 hours.
Sir Bradley Wiggins led the British Cycling team to team pursuit victory on the first day of the Revolution Series in Derby.
Wiggins teamed up with Steven Burke, Owain Doull and Jon Dibben to clock a winning time of 3:54.974 minutes.
British Cycling Olympic Academy athletes Germain Burton, Chris Latham, Matt Gibson and Ollie Wood finished second in a time of 4:1.055.
Joanna Rowsell Shand edged out fellow Brit Ciara Horne to win the women's individual pursuit final in a time of 3:37.320, while Laura Trott beat Emily Kay to finish third.
Scotland's Callum Skinner beat world record holder Francois Pervis in the 1km time trial, while Katy Marchant triumphed in the 500m time trial in a time of 34.117 seconds.
Katie Archibald rounded off a fine evening for Great Britain by winning the scratch race, with Trott again on the podium after she secured a second-placed finish.
Andy Murray reached the semi-finals of the Rogers Cup in Montreal by beating defending champion Jo-Wilfried Tsonga.
The British second seed broke the Frenchman's serve once in each set to win 6-4 6-4 in a rain-delayed match which finished at 01:30 local time.
Murray will now meet Kei Nishikori in the last four after the Japanese fourth seed overcame Rafael Nadal 6-2 6-4.
Top-seeded Wimbledon champion Novak Djokovic plays unseeded Jeremy Chardy in Saturday's other semi-final.
An historic semi-finals day at the European Boxing Championships in Samakov, Bulgaria, saw five British boxers progress into finals, meaning it is the best ever performance by Team GB.
Victories for England’s Harvey Horn (light-flyweight), Qais Ashfaq (bantamweight), Pat McCormack (light-welterweight) and Muhammed Ali (flyweight) along with Wales’ Joe Cordina marked a triumphant day for the GB Boxing squad as all five guaranteed at least a silver medal.
Joshua Buatsi leaves with bronze after losing out to Holland’s vastly experienced Peter Mullenburg in the light-heavyweight contest.
All six boxers have guaranteed place at the World Championships in Doha in October which is an Olympic qualifying event.
Bianca Walkden and Mahama Cho collected bronze medals as the Taekwondo World Grand prix Series opened up in Moscow, Russia.
Walkden was first to go in her semi-final but she was unable to progress to the showpiece, losing to Turkey’s Nafia Kus by golden point.
And Cho suffered a last-gasp defeat too as Russian Vladislav Larin landed crucial points in the final few seconds to win 5-0, meaning the Brit had to settle for bronze.
All nine British boats progressed to their respective semi-finals as the Canoe Slalom World Cup move to Pau, France.
In the men’s C1, veteran David Florence and both young paddlers Ryan Westley and Adam Burgess flew straight through the heats on the first run in sixth, seventh and ninth place respectively. Joe Clarke kept his consistent form going again in the men’s K1, qualifying direct for the semis in 12th place, with Bradley Forbes-Cryans growing in confidence with every race in this his debut senior season, to go straight through in 22nd place.
Richard Hounslow had to contest the second run, but a fast clean performance second time down the course assured himself of a semi-final berth.
Eilidh Gibson was back in action this week in the women’s canoe single (C1W) and with rock solid skills demonstrated particularly at the bottom of the course, she nailed her semi-final place in fourth.
Jasmine Royle also showed good race strategy and finished sixth to go direct to the semis and they were joined by Kimberley Woods who took the win on run two to keep her hopes of a consecutive podium finish alive.
Marcus Ellis and Chris Langridge insist they can leave the Badminton World Championships with their heads held high after their run came to an end at the men's doubles quarter-final stage on Friday in Indonesia.
Ellis and Langridge, the unseeded pair, lost 21-16, 22-20 to Mohammad Ahsan and Hendra Setiawan, Indonesia's third seeds, as they just fell short of a semi-final berth.
After taking out the tenth and eighth seeds respectively, their fairytale run looked set to run even further as they found themselves with three game points in the second before Ahsan and Setiawan, the 2013 world champions, prevailed after 45 minutes of world-class badminton.
Their defeat also ended England's campaign in Jakarta after Chris and Gabby Adcock were forced to withdraw from the Championships after Chris fell ill ahead of their last eight clash.
And while admitting they weren't up to their best in Jakarta, both Ellis and Langridge believe they did themselves proud during their World advernture.
"I think we played well today but we weren’t at our best," admitted Ellis.
"We are gutted that we couldn't bring our very best, but we were playing against one of the best pairs in the world so we have to take the positives."
"Looking back at the tournament I think we have missed an opportunity but I am proud of how we have performed," added Langridge.
"We have proved to ourselves that we know we can compete with, and beat, the best pairs in the world."
Freyja Prentice admits she is not setting herself any targets at next week’s Modern Pentathlon European Championships after it was announced she would take the final GB women's team spot.
The 25-year-old had been struggling to overcome severe bone stress to her tibia, but has recovered in time to pip former World champion and London 2012 Olympian Mhairi Spence to the spot.
But after struggling with injury Prentice insists she is just going to take the competition one event at a time rather than aim for a finishing position.
"The thought of competing at the Europeans is what has kept me going; I put a lot of pressure on myself to get back in time," Prentice said.
"My expectations for the competition have definitely changed, as I am not as confident in my physical ability as I would normally be.
"I am going to take it one event at a time and one day at a time with my main goal being to make it through to the final.
"I would usually aim for the top eight or top ten but I don’t know how my body is going to respond to two days of competition. Recovery after the qualification round will be crucial."
© Sportsbeat 2015