Nicola Adams secures at least a silver medal after qualifying for World Championship final as Britain’s gymnasts book team and individual spots in the European Championship finals in Bern. Here’s our review of the last 24 hours:
Nicola Adams is one step closer to completing her international medal collection after booking her place in the AIBA Women’s World Championship final.
The reigning Olympic and European champion defeated Kazakhstan’s Zhaina Shekerbekova in Thursday’s semi-final, earning a unanimous points decision to seal at least a silver medal.
She will fight for gold in the finals which start at 10am UK time today (Friday).
It was disappointment however for Savannah Marshall as she lost to Nouchka Fontjin of the Netherlands in her 75kg semi-final.
However, she still returns from Astana with a bronze medal and a place representing Team GB at Rio 2016.
The European Gymnastic Championship finals will see a full house of British athletes after the men’s team qualified in second place, with all five members making their respective apparatus finals.
The team of Nile Wilson, Kristian Thomas, Louis Smith MBE, Daniel Purvis and Courtney Tulloch qualified with a total score of 267.02, just 0.7 points behind leaders Russia.
Saturday’s finals will see Purvis and Thomas compete on the floor, with Thomas also set to compete on the high bar and vault.
Smith topped qualification on the pommel, while Tulloch will compete in the rings final and Wilson takes on the high bar.
Thomas said: “We’re very satisfied with our performance as a team, a great job by everyone today.
“In qualifying it is about posting clean routines and doing the job to get to the final, what’s very positive is that we’ve done that with more to give.
“It will be tough to overhaul Russia but we’ll give it everything on Saturday.”
Modern pentathlon World Cup champion Jamie Cooke qualified for the men’s final at the World Championships in Moscow on Thursday.
Fresh from his World Cup success, Cooke started his day in the fencing salle, finishing in sixth position before swimming sub two minutes in the pool to push him into second and into Saturday’s final.
Pentathlon GB’s performance director Jan Bartu said: “Jamie’s performance today was to a very high standard as we expected.
“There is still room for improvement ahead of the final but we are confident he will show that.
“He needs to fight for the top positions again and gain the respect of the other competitors as this could be very important in the Olympics.”
It’s been a tough couple of days for Andy Murray, but his brother Jamie and doubles partner Bruno Soares made light work of their French Open first round fixture, beating Russian duo Evgeny Donskoy and Andrey Kuznetsov in straight sets.
It took just 58 minutes for Murray and Brazilian Soares to record a 6-3 6-3 victory in Paris as the Australian Open champions look to add another Grand Slam victory to their repertoire.
They faced a tough battle in the opening games, but controlled play from a 4-2 advantage to take the match out of the Russians’ grasp.
Murray and Soares will face French team David Guez and Vincent Millot in the second round later this week.
Six of Britain’s archers remain in contention of sealing a place at the Olympic Games after reaching the last 32 of the European Archery Championships in Nottingham.
Larry Godfrey, Patrick Huston and Kieran Slater join Naomi Folkard, Amy Oliver and Bryony Pitman in the race to Rio, with two phases of eliminations complete in the Olympic Games quota tournament.
Competition will resume on Friday morning, with Great Britain having just one men’s and one women’s place up for grabs for Rio.
With the European Championships starting this week and selection for the Olympic Games not far away, this is definitely one of my most important months for a long time.
I’m enjoying it though because I don’t know how many more competitions I am going to be doing like this.
The last two Olympic cycles have been great and now I’m just trying to get my routines and my body ready and enjoy it.
There’s a lot of pressure but I’m enjoying the big competitions, putting my hand up and hoping to get the job done.
It has been a good year so far and, touch wood, there haven’t been any setbacks for me just yet.
At the Europeans this week we’re aiming to get first in the team event or, if not, then at least get a team medal.
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Sportsbeat 2016