Cyclist Peter Kennaugh remains in pole position at the Sun Tour in Australia after a third-place finish on day three while aerial skier Lloyd Wallace impresses with a personal best performance at World Cup event in Deer Valley. Here’s the review of the last 24 hours.
Peter Kennaugh maintained the leaders bib at the Sun Tour in Australia after placing thirdi n stage three.
As had been the case the day before, Kennaugh and teammate Chris Froome attacked inside the closing kilometres although they were unable to clinch a British one-two again as they finished third and fourth respectively.
Caleb Ewan (Orica GreenEdge) won the day but Kennaugh solidified his race lead and stayed at the top of the sprint classification.
Froome stayed second overall, 13 seconds behind Kennaugh, although he did relinquish the King of the Mountains jersey to Chris Harper (Swiss Wellness).
"The whole stage was quite exciting. Avanti took it up on the main climb, I wasn't too sure why, perhaps they were going for the King of the Mountains points, but either way it made it an exciting race and the stage really hard,” said Kennaugh.
"I think that's partly why it split in the crosswinds at the end, because everyone was racing on tired legs.
“Then we turned left towards that climb and I got on the radio to the guys, said give it everything, and it split pretty quickly.
"I gave it one last dig at the end but I knew it was always going to be hard to shake Caleb [Ewan] off. He stuck to my wheel though, so then I just stuck with him and rode in.”
Reigning champion Mark Cavendish slipped to fifth overall at the Dubai Tour after a crash disrupted his chances of contesting the sprint.
The incident happened coming out of the tunnel with just over a kilometre to go, derailing several leadout trains including those of Cavendish’s Dimension Data squad.
He tried to move back up in the closing metres but was too far back as Team Sky’s Elia Viviani took victory.
“It was a little bit sketchy, it always is this stage. There were too many risks being taken, too many risks,” he told Cyclingnews and Het Nieuwsblad.
“We were okay in the tunnel and Mark (Renshaw) did a good job. Then a rider from SkyDive Dubai, I don’t know his name, he just turned right and ‘Bam!’ I was on my brakes, on the uphill…I knew I was too far behind after that but then I saw that Guardini had a lead out man.
“I decided to stay behind them thinking they’d accelerate but they didn’t. I was just too far back.”
British aerials skier Lloyd Wallace couldn’t wipe the smile off his face after he finished an impressive seventh at the Deer Valley Aerials World Cup.
Having previously qualified in 12th place, Wallace put in an assured performance in the final, posting a personal best score of 113.97, performing a back Lay-Double Full-Full.
Overall victory went to China’s Guangpu Qi on 127.15.
"I am absolutely ecstatic with my result! Both jumps were the best I've ever done on snow I think,” said Wallace.
“I still can't believe it; I was aiming for a top 20, and to come away in 7th is just a dream! Big thanks to my coach Mich Roth who deserves just as much credit."
Katie Swan wrote her name into the history books as she helped Great Britain beat South Africa in their first tie at the Europe/Africa Group 1 tournament.
At the age of 16 and 316 days, Swan became Great Britain’s youngest ever player, surpassing the previous record held by Anne Keothavong at 17 years and 222 days.
And it proved to be a victorious debut as she beat Ilze Hattingh 6-3, 6-0 before Heather Watson then beat Channel Simmmonds 6-3, 6-3 in the best-of-three tie and Anna Smith and Jocelyn Rae rounded off the 3-0 win in the women’s doubles.
Britain must win three ties to secure a World Cup II play-off in April,.
"I was really excited to play but I was also a bit nervous, which was showing in the beginning, but I managed to relax after a few games and I started playing really well," Swan told the Fed Cup website.
"British tennis is doing amazing. We have the Davis Cup boys who just won and obviously Jo and Andy (Murray) and Jamie (Murray) doing so well in Australia. It's inspired the whole team."
Sportsbeat 2016