Silver medal wins for Siobhan-Marie O'Connor and the men's 4x200m freestyle relay squad give Team GB their best Olympic Games in the pool since Los Angeles 1984.
Siobhan-Marie O’Connor and the men’s 4x200m freestyle relay quartet both won silvers as the Team GB swimmers doubled their medal tally in the Olympic Aquatics Centre.
O’Connor became the first British woman to win an Olympic 200m individual medley medal as she touched home just 0.3 behind Hungary’s Katinka Hosszu in a British record 2:06.88.
“It is an absolutely amazing feeling,” said O’Connor. “I have had probably the most consistent block of work that I have ever had leading up to this.
“I was really confident coming into it because sometimes I can have disruptions. I felt in a really good place.
“My team have just been amazing at keeping me fit and health and in training. It is brilliant and I am over the moon with that result.”
The relay quartet followed up in style, slicing more than a second from their British record they set to win World Championship gold in 2015.
Having finished fourth in the individual 200m freestyle, 20-year old James Guy brought the team home in 7:03.13.
The Brits have now won four medals in the pool – their best tally at an Olympics since they won one silver and four bronzes at the 1984 Games in Los Angeles.
Katherine Grainger will bid for her fifth successive Olympic medal after qualifying for the women’s double sculls final at Rio 2016.
Grainger is a British rowing legend having claimed three silvers in a row between Sydney 2000 and Beijing 2008 before finally getting a golden upgrade at London 2012.
She finds herself in the women’s double sculls with Vicky Thornley having won gold in London with Anna Watkins but the story is very much the same.
The Team GB pair were one of three to row to finals on the morning of day four in Rio, finishing second in their semi-final.
“It is the Olympics where you want to pull out your best races. The most pleasing thing was that the first thing we said when we got out of the boat was that we can row a lot better,” she said.
“Getting a medal is always the most thrilling, exciting, wonderful thing you can do at an Olympics. Right now it is about getting the best performance out of the two of us and if that’s fast enough that’s where we want to be.”
Stewart Innes and Alan Sinclair progressed in the men’s pair while Jonathan Walton and John Collins followed suit in the men’s double sculls – but there were mixed emotions.
The men’s lightweight four were fourth in their semi-final and so have to settle for the B final and Olympic champion Katherine Copeland and Charlotte Taylor struggled in the repechage.
The women’s lightweight double scullers placed third, ending their medal hopes, but men’s single sculler Alan Campbell finished second in his quarter-final to make the semi-finals.
David Florence’s hunt for a medal in the C1 canoe slalom came to an end early in his final run, with two-time Olympic medallist admitting he misjudged his line to the opening gate and failed to recover.
Florence finished tenth in the final, won by Frenchman Denis Gargaud Chanut, but will return to the water on Thursday with Richard Hounslow in the C2 semi-final.
“I was a bit tight on the first gate of a difficult three-gate sequence and it was unrecoverable from there. I just didn’t get the run back far enough to make up for that mistake at all, which was very disappointing,” he said.
“Obviously I’m disappointed, but that’s that unfortunately. I’ll treat the C2 exactly the same as if I’d won this. I’ve got to prepare to the best of my ability, get to the final and then try and deliver in that final run.”
Nick Dempsey believes he has grasped what it will take to remain the man to beat in the Olympic windsurfing regatta at Marina da Gloria after an overall positive second day of racing.
The 35-year-old headed into races four, five and six having claimed two wins and a second on the opening day and was on form in his first two outings to finish first again followed by fourth.
His third race of the day was initially one to forget though with the double Olympic medallist placing 14th after wind conditions fell on the Escola Naval course.
He was given a redress in that outing post-racing however for an incident involving Juozas Bernotas of Lithuania that left him in the water.
And Dempsey is adamant he knows exactly what he needs to do to ensure he is still in first place come Sunday’s medal race.
“It is as it looks really, it started well and ended badly. The first and fourth [place finishes] were good, you just don’t want to lose your discard too early,” he said.
“I feel confident and that I’d be good in any conditions. I feel I have got a good handle of what it is going to take to win here and I am feeling comfortable and confident.”
Bryony Shaw was seventh, 14th and 12th in her three races in the women’s windsurfing regatta and is now tenth overall after six outings in total.
Nick Thompson was ninth and 15th for 12th overall after four races in the Laser and in the Laser Radial Alison Young was 13th and 26th to sit 18th at the same stage.
Giles Scott’s campaign in the Finn began with a 17th and third on the Pao de Acucar course.
Team GB’s equestrian riders finished in fifth place in the eventing team competition with a total score of 252.1 following a strong final day in the showjumping.
Four superb rides from Gemma Tattersall, Kitty King, Pippa Funnell and William Fox-Pitt saw them take just four penalties jointly between them as France took gold with Germany and Australia occupying the silver and bronze medal positions.
The impressive final day however was not enough to challenge the podium following a below-par day in the cross-country on Monday where all four Team GB riders picked up penalties during their round.
Fox-Pitt, who dropped from first place in the individual event following an error in cross-country, was flawless in the showjumping with no penalties to claim a respectable 12th place but the 47-year-old from Sturminster Newton was disappointed to miss out on a medal.
“I did jump well and it was really great to finish on a good note,” said Fox-Pitt. “With a bit more luck, we would’ve been right up there but we just didn’t have that luck with us.”
Elsewhere in the individual event, Funnell finished 26th, King 30th and Tattersall 41st.
Becky Downie could not have been prouder of her artistic gymnastics teammates after a fifth-place finish in the team event at Rio 2016.
The team ended on 174.363 after their four apparatus in the Arena Olimpica de Rio - a repeat of their position four years ago at London 2012.
The quintet of the Becky, sister Ellie, Ruby Harrold, Amy Tinkler and Claudia Fragapane sat third after a strong uneven bars but dropped to fifth following a slip by Ellie on the beam. They were unable to make the ground up as the USA stormed to gold with Russia and China taking silver and bronze.
The team took a historic first ever Wold Championship team medal in Glasgow last year but Becky believes the standard of the other nations continues to push the boundaries of the sport.
“I couldn’t have done too much more. I was fighting towards the end of that but overall I’m really happy. It’s the team final so there is quite a lot of pressure going up there,” said Downie.
“I think Glasgow did set the expectation and we knew it wasn’t going to be easy here. We’ve all upgraded our routines since Glasgow and got more but the level of gymnastics has gone up again and we couldn’t have done anymore.
“It wasn’t quite what we did at the worlds but I’m still really proud of everybody. The team has done an amazing job and I’m just really proud of the girls.”
It was the perfect start for Team GB’s men’s rugby sevens squad, winning both of their opening day games to top the pool.
Two tries from Dan Bibby and others from Dan Norton, Phil Burgess and Mark Bennett saw Team GB down Kenya 31-7.
The clash with Japan, who beat New Zealand earlier in the day, was less straightforward however as they came back from a 14-0 deficit to level the match.
A third try for Team GB through Marcus Watson was again cancelled out by the Cherry Blossoms after the final buzzer, but a missed conversion with the game's final kick gave Britain the win by two points.
“We’ve worked hard as a team. We’ve pitched this for a few weeks now, working hard as a group. We’ve had an amazing lead into it with the camp in Belo [Horizonte]. There’s still room for improvement, but it’s a good start,” Norton said after the first game.
Naomi Folkard is safely through to the last 16 of the women’s archery event after an impressive morning at the Sambadrome.
The 32-year-old breezed past London 2012 bronze medallist Kaori Kawanka of Japan 6-0 to set up a last 16 match up with home favourite Ane Marcelle Gomes Dos Santos on Thursday.
Folkard had earlier been forced into an opening round shoot-off by Indonesia’s Ika Rochmawati but held her nerve to win 6-5 and progress at Rio 2016.
And Folkard said: “I shot really well there and to carry on shooting well against a serious competitor does give me confidence. My practice was not good but the adrenaline gets you focused and gets you pumped.
“I thought I shot well in the first match despite it going to a shoot-off. There was just that one dodgy shot and it ended up going to a shoot-off. It’s quite rare to shoot that well in a first round and still have to get to that point."
Andy Murray and Johanna Konta made smooth progress in their respective singles draws on a successful day for the Team GB tennis squad.
The manner of their victories couldn’t have been more different with Murray cruising through in straight sets and Konta outstaying double Grand Slam champion Svetlana Kuznetsova in a three-hour epic.
Murray played first, dispatching Argentina’s Juan Monaco with a 6-3, 6-1 win in little over an hour on the centre court to set up a third round clash with Italy’s Fabio Fognini.
“I played pretty well. I hit the ball well from the back of the court,” said the two-time Wimbledon champion. “I didn’t make many unforced errors and it was a good match.”
Konta came through 3-6, 7-5, 7-5 against 10 Kuznetsova, with 15 breaks of serve over three long sets. The 25-year old plays Australian Open champion Angelique Kerber of Germany in the quarter finals.
“I’ve been very fortunate that I’ve been part of some spectacular matches in my career,” said Konta. “Hopefully there will be more to come but that definitely ranks up there just because it’s my first Olympics.”
Tonia Couch and Lois Toulson scored a personal best 319.44 to finish fifth in the synchronised 10m platform final.
The British pair were aiming to become the first British female diving medallists at a Games for 56 years.
And while they ultimately couldn’t breach the podium places, the Brits walked away with their heads held high, finishing 16.74 points shy of bronze.
“Some of the teams here have been competing together for years,” said Couch, who is competing at her third Olympic Games.
“We’ve been competing together for eight months so I didn’t want to go in panicking and we just wanted to give it our all.
“I think we would have been more nervous for that final dive if we were in the top three all the way through. But knowing we were fourth or fifth, I just relaxed, had fun and got on with it.
“The competition was so much fun and it was great to do synchro with Lois.”
Team GB’s men’s hockey side claimed an important 9-1 win against Brazil as they emphatically came from behind against the hosts to keep their hopes of qualifying from Pool A alive.
Facing Brazil in front of a boisterous home crowd, Team GB made the worst possible start as some poor defending saw them concede a goal inside the first three minutes. But they struck back quickly as Adam Dixon levelled with a cool strike into the bottom left hand corner.
Captain Barry Middleton put Team GB into the ascendency with a calmly taken goal and a third from Ashley Jackson put them well in control with a 3-1 lead at half-time.
Team GB pressed home their dominance in the second half with Harry Martin, Sam Ward and Mark Gleghorne getting on the scoresheet and Middleton, Jackson and Ward all scoring twice to complete the rout.
“It was good fun getting some goals out there and I think it shows what we are capable of as a team,” said Middleton
Joe Cordina was the only Team GB boxer in action on day four, falling in the last 16 of the lightweight competition.
The 24-year old from Cardiff lost to Hurshid Tojibaev, with the Uzbekistan boxer winning the second and third rounds.
And European champion Cordina was quick to credit his opponents’ style, keeping the Brit at bay with some hard jabs to the body.
“He was very, very hard hitting and he hit me a lot in the body and slowed me right down,” said Cordina. “I couldn’t pick it back up and he was a tough opponent.
“It is just getting it right on the day. He had a game plan and he was pretty successful going to the body. Even his little jabs, it was surprising how hard he hit and how much a jab to the body can slow you down.”
Alice Schlesinger became the third British judoka to fall in the last 16 as she lost out to the Netherlands’ Anicka Van Emden in the -63kg.
The 28-year old was defeated by a single shido penalty, conceded in the first 15 seconds of the match.
Schlesinger was awarded a yuko point half-way through the match but saw her hopes dashed as the referee immediately reversed the decision.
“I thought it was my score but once they wiped it off, I knew I had to get up a score,” said Schlesinger.
“She was quite defensive but I knew it would be a fight like that. I thought it was going to be decided by shidos and she just got the first one.
“I knew it was going to be a really hard fight but I’d prepared for it. Some days it’s like this, some days it goes the other way.”