Olympic24: Franklin takes gold, Murray marches on at SW19

Canoeist Mallory Franklin celebrates third senior gold medal at Slovakia World Cup while Andy Murray navigates his way past third-round opponent Andreas Seppi. Here's our review of the last 24 hours.

Mallory Franklin returned to the top spot of the podium as she claimed the third gold medal of her senior career at the World Cup in Liptovsky, Slovakia.

The 21-year-old, who won C1 golds in Augsburg and Lee Valley last season, put in an impressive showing to top the morning’s semi-final.

She then finished second in the final behind Jess Fox but with the Australian later awarded 50 seconds in penalties following an appeal, Franklin took the win.

“With Jess having a late 50 put on at the last moment it felt a bit all over the place as the three of us all stood in front of the camera waiting for the outcome,” said Franklin.  “But it was a good solid run and I’m pretty happy with my performance generally.

“Generally it has been a pretty good season and I’m pretty happy so far, especially the winter I had with a number of injuries.  I’m pretty pleased with the outcome.”

Andy Murray may have given the partisan Wimbledon crowd a scare en route to reaching the fourth round but he insists he found top gear towards the end of his victory over Andreas Seppi.

On paper, Murray’s 6-2, 6-2, 1-6, 6-1 win in the third round appears relatively routine but the sight of the trainer vigorously working on the Brit’s shoulder at the beginning of the fourth set ensured an eerie hush descended on a previously raucous Centre Court.

“I thought I played very well – there was part of the second set where I struggled a little bit but how I finished the match is how I want to play the rest of the way,” explained Murray.

“My shoulder began to hurt, you could probably see a little bit towards the end of the second set that I started to tighten up.” Read more here.

Meanwhile James Ward’s adventure at SW19 came to an end as he suffered a 6-4, 3-6, 2-6, 6-3, 8-6 defeat to Vasek Pospisil. Read more here.

Chris Froome started the bid to regain his Tour de France title with a solid prologue ride in Utrecht.

The 2013 champion sits 50 seconds off the pace set by early yellow jersey holder Rohan Dennis, who clocked the fastest individual time trial in history, covering the 13.8 kilometre course at an average speed of 55.446 km/h.

Steve Cummings is the best placed of the ten British riders in tenth.

"It's the longer efforts I've been training for and I'm happy to have that out the way," said Froome.

It was a case of mixed emotions for Sophie Weguelin and Eilidh McIntyre as they were forced to settle for bronze at the 470 European Championships in Denmark.

The world number ten-ranked duo finished fifth overall in the Open regatta, won by New Zealand’s Olympic champions Jo Aleh and Olivia Powrie, but were the third ranked European crew behind Slovenia’s Tina Mrak and Veronika Macarol.

“It is really cool to come away with a Europeans medal.  But it is also just a little bit frustrating right now as we know it could have been better,” said Weguelin.

“We made a few errors during the week which ultimately made the difference.

“But we’ve shown great boat speed this week and have made some really great progress on our starts, so those are some positives to take away from the event in terms of our sailing.”

In the men’s division, defending European champions Luke Patience and Elliot Willis finished as the fourth European crew and sixth overall.

Jessica Ennis-Hill is prepared to leave it as late as possible before committing herself to next month's World Championships.

Ennis-Hill finished third in her strongest 100m hurdles event at the British Championships in Birmingham on Saturday behind sisters Tiffany Porter and Cindy Ofili – both of whom booked their spot on the team for Beijing.

But Ennis wants more evidence that she'll be competitive in the heptathlon before getting on the plane to China.

"I've still not made a decision and it will probably be quite a late call after the Anniversary Games in London," said Ennis.

"I really need to see where my hurdles are, I have to be running under 13 seconds. If I'm that kind of shape then I'll probably go.”

Meanwhile Isobel Pooley broke the British outdoor high jump record by clearing 1.97m. Read more here.

Samantha Murray suffered disappointment as she finished fifth at the Modern Pentathlon World Championships, missing out on automatic qualification for Rio 2016 in the process.

The former champion lost out to overall winner Lena Schoneborn as a poor display in the fencing cost her.

Her next chance to qualify for Rio 2016 will be at the European Championships in Bath in August.

Great Britain's men's eight beat arch-rivals Australia to set up a showdown with Germany in the showpiece Grand Challenge Cup at the Henley Royal Regatta.

Great Britain are the world champions and Germany took the Olympic title at London 2012. They've raced twice this season and the honours are even - Germany winning the European title and GB claiming the honours in a thrilling World Cup race two weeks ago.

Paul Bennett, a reigning World Champion, said: “I am actually really excited about facing Germany here.

"We obviously usually race six lanes but this will be a real side-by-side, honest battle. We have been back and forth the last few times we have raced each other, so I really don’t know what is going to happen. It’s just going to be a genuine, hard race fought tooth and nail."

© Sportsbeat 2015