Olympic24: Froome loses yellow, Murray marches on

Chris Froome 12 seconds behind new Tour de France leader Tony Martin after stage four, while Jamie Murray leads the charge for his family after reaching men's doubles semi-finals. Here's our review of the last 24 hours.

Chris Froome retained his lead over his main rivals even if he did lose the yellow jersey on stage four from Seraing to Cambrai.

The 2013 winner is now 12 seconds adrift of new leader Tony Martin after the German made the decisive break after a tricky stage which included the famous cobbles.

But crucially Froome leads fellow title contenders Alberto Contador by 36 seconds, Vincenzo Nibali by one minute 38 seconds and Nairo Quintana by one minute 56 seconds.

He said: “It wasn’t trying to show how strong I was on the cobbles, it was about staying out of trouble.

“Congratulations to Tony [Martin] for his late attack. He’s been really close to the yellow jersey for a few days now and he deserves this after all the hard work he’s put in.

“I’m not concerned about losing the yellow jersey. There’s a long way to go, and while Tony’s a great time triallist, he’s not going to be there in the mountains, so I’m happy to see the jersey go to him rather than any of the big overall rivals.”

Jamie Murray will take a step into the unknown after reaching the semi-finals of the men’s doubles at Wimbledon for the first time.

Murray, winner of the mixed doubles title in 2007, and Australian partner John Peers beat Alexander Peya and Bruno Soares 6-4, 7-6, 6-3.

“I think I am playing the best I’ve ever done. We’re moving in the right direction certainly. It’s not a shock to me, I know we’re good - we deserve to be where we are.,” said Murray. Read more here.

Great Britain will hope for more of the same after naming an unchanged Davis Cup team for their quarter-final with France.

British number one Andy Murray, brother Jamie, James Ward and Dominic Inglot battled hard to see off the challenge of the USA in Glasgow in March.

And captain Leon Smith has opted to go with the same line up for the tie at Queen's Club from 17-19 July.

"I'm delighted to announce the same team line-up that beat the USA in Glasgow," said Smith.

"Andy will spearhead our side, carrying tremendous momentum from the clay court season onto the grass.

"James Ward knows what it's like to create upsets in Davis Cup and we saw that in his heroic performance against John Isner in March.

"Our doubles team of Dom and Jamie showed what they could do against the world's best doubles team of all time, plus the fact that either can play with Andy puts us in a great position.”

Mo Farah believes the Anniversary Games can act as the perfect preparation ahead of defending his two titles at next month's World Championships in Beijing.

Farah will be one of a host of star names to return to the scene of London 2012 for the two-day Diamond League meeting at the Queen Elizabeth Olympic Park on Friday 24 and Sunday 25 July.

It takes place just four weeks before the World Championships in China where double Olympic champion Farah will bid to retain his 5000m and 10,000m titles.

"The race will be exciting on the Friday night at the Olympic Stadium. My training is going well and it is just what I need to prepare more for the IAAF World Championships," he said.

"The Olympic Stadium feels like home to me. 'Super Saturday' at the London 2012 Olympic Games when Jess Ennis-Hill, Greg Rutherford and I all won gold medals for our country was the finest hour for athletics in Britain."

Great Britain's archers will attempt to secure quota places for Rio 2016 at the first time of asking when the World Championships kick off in Copenhagen later this month.

Olympians Naomi Folkard, Amy Oliver and Larry Godfrey represent the more experienced members of the six-strong recurve squad with Nicky Hung, Kieran Slater and Patrick Huston all making their senior World Championships bow.

There are a further six archers for the compound discipline – Naomi Jones, Danielle Brown and Lucy O'Sullivan in the female competition and Adam Ravenscroft, Mark Rudd and Duncan Busby in the men's.

The competition, which runs from July 26 to August 2, will culminate with medal matches outside Danish Parliament building, the Christiansborg Palace.

© Sportsbeat 2015