Lizzie Armitstead wins the women's Tour of Flanders as Heather Olver and Lauren Smith find doubles success in France. Here's our review of the last 24 hours.
Lizzie Armitstead claims it was a perfect day as she continued her remarkable form this season to win the women’s Tour of Flanders on Sunday.
The current road race world champion has been unstoppable since clinching the rainbow jersey – triumphing in the Omloop het Nieuwsblad, Strade Bianche and Trofeo Binda – but Sunday’s victory was her biggest to date.
Armitstead and Emma Johansson broke clear on the final climb and the Brit edged her Swedish rival by less than half a wheel in the final sprint.
And the Boels-Dolmans rider – who had consistently cited the Tour of Flanders and the Rio 2016 Olympic Games as her main targets for the season – was ecstatic to hold off Johansson.
“It was a really strange race with just two in the front,” said Armitstead. “We had to commit. I didn’t leave anything for the sprint. Emma’s fast, and I didn’t underestimate her.
“It was a poker game in the end. I didn’t have any radio, so I didn’t know what was happening.
“It’s really special to win, and to win in the rainbow jersey is even more special. It was the perfect day.”
National badminton champions Heather Olver and Lauren Smith boosted their Olympic qualification hopes with victory in the Orleans International women’s doubles final in France on Sunday.
The British top seeds overcame unseeded French duo Delphine Delrue and Lea Palermo 21-19, 21-8 to lift the trophy.
And as they move ever closer to achieving their dream of competing at Rio 2016, Smith couldn’t hide her delight at the triumph.
“We’re really happy to have won this week, it’s good to take confidence going forward,” she said.
“In terms of Rio we are just focusing on performing every game, one at a time.”
Runners-up last year, Olver and Smith were ruthless in the opening game as they looked to avoid a repeat of their 2015 heartache.
After building an initial 9-4 lead they later moved 16-13 ahead before closing out game one.
In the second, Olver and Smith stormed into an 11-0 lead and kept cool heads to get over the line.
Next on the calendar for the duo is this week’s Malaysian Open as the countdown to Rio continues.
Kat Driscoll and Nathan Bailey both picked up individual bronze at the 2016 European Trampoline Championships in Valladolid, Spain.
London 2012 Olympian Driscoll scored 54.305 points to finish in third in the women’s event behind Russia’s Yana Pavlova and Belarus’ Hanna Harchonak.
Meanwhile in the men’s event Bailey’s score of 58.655 saw him also win bronze as Uladzislau Hancharou of Belarus lifted the title with Russia’s Dmitry Ushakov taking silver.
Driscoll’s bronze was her second medal of the week after joining Amanda Parker, Pamela Clark and Bryony Page to form the quartet that won the women’s European title in Valladolid.
Luke Rowe refused to be downhearted after coming fifth following a gruelling Tour of Flanders on Sunday.
The Team Sky cyclist finished as the top Brit by crossing the line 49 seconds behind winner Peter Sagan, who held off the chasing duo of Fabian Cancellara and Sep Vanmarcke to take the title.
The Tour of Flanders is the first of cycling’s five Monuments – the biggest one-day races of the season – and Team Sky are still seeking a first win at any of the five since their formation.
Geraint Thomas, who won the prestigious Paris-Nice stage race earlier this year, appeared to be their best hope of ending that drought heading in but he eventually finished 12th on the day.
Yet 26-year-old Rowe believes there was little else his team could have done to have one of their riders walk away victorious.
“We had numbers in the front,” explained Rowe. “Tactically we were really good, we didn’t miss any moves, but the three strongest guys who were away in the end were the three strongest guys in the race. There’s nothing you can do about that.
“I finished fifth and we had G [Geraint Thomas] up there. We didn’t win but we’re certainly not too disappointed.
“And for me personally that was a pretty big ride. That was massive for me. So yeah, I’m happy.”
Scotland suffered a 9-6 defeat to Russia in the fourth session of the round-robin stage at the World Curling Championship.
Following victories over Norway and South Korea, Scotland fell to their first loss in Switzerland, with the bulk of the damage done as Russia gained four shots in the fourth end.
And skip Tom Brewster said: “I’m still trying to figure out how that happened.
“We didn’t pick up on the stones or the ice and we weren’t throwing well enough to do so.
“Hopefully we can learn from that for later in the week, but it might come back to haunt us.”
Scotland were level at 1-1 after three ends, but Russian skip Alexey Tselousov then cleared the house with his final stone in the next to score four and build what proved to be an unassailable lead.
Russia were sitting pretty at 8-2 up at the end of the sixth end, Tselousov playing a double take-out.
Brewster’s men did mount a fight back in the ninth, a double take-out cutting the lead to 9-6, but Scotland ran out of stones in the tenth end.
They return to action on Monday against Japan and later Canada.
Sportsbeat 2016