A famous weekend for Geraint Thomas and more success for short track speed skater Elise Christie. Here's our round-up of the last 24 hours:
Sprinter Asha Philip will captain the Great Britain team at this week’s World Indoor Championships in Portland. Philip was a world junior 100m champion nine years ago but believes this could be her breakthrough year, as Britain’s women’s sprinters look to the Olympics with confidence. “Everything has been going really well so far in 2016, so I hope to come to here (to Portland) and execute my race and perform to the levels I know I can. It would be the perfect way to head into the outdoor season in an Olympic year. “I love representing my country and it’s something that never gets old, so to have been selected to be captain of the British Athletics team at the World Indoor Championships is unreal and a massive honour.”
Great Britain claimed two medals at the FINA Diving World Series in Beijing - as the host country won all ten golds on offer. Tonia Couch and Lois Toulson secured silver in their first international outing as a pair in the 10m synchro while Tom Daley and Dan Goodfellow won bronze in the men's 10m synchro.
Daley finished fourth in the men’s 10m platform, missing out on a medal by just 0.95 points while Jack Laugher was sixth in the men’s 3m springboard final and the men’s 3m synchro final with partner Chris Mears.
Couch made the women's 10m platform final and finished fifth.
Joseph Choong was the top placed British athlete at the modern pentathlon World Cup in Rio, which doubled as the Olympic test event. Choong finished 13th in the men’s final while team-mate James Cooke ranked 19th. In the women’s competition, Freyja Prentice returned from injury to finish 17th with Francesca Summers 26th and Olympic silver medallist and former world champion Samantha Murray and Kate French finishing 33rd and 35th respectively.
Geraint Thomas hailed the biggest win of his career after holding in dramatic style to win Paris-Nice.
Thomas is only the third British rider to win the prestigious race. Tommy Simpson was the first in 1967, while Sir Bradley Wiggins won in 2012, the same year he went on to win the Tour de France.
Thomas – a two-time Olympic gold medallist on the track – had to be at his defensive best along with his Team Sky teammates to hold off a succession of attacks.
Alberto Contador, Richie Porte and Tim Wellens all dropped Thomas on the last two climbs of the stage race.
And although they did manage to open a 30-second gap, Thomas and his team-mates gradually wound it in on the final descent to claim overall victory by only four seconds.
"It's incredible to have won Paris-Nice and hard to believe, to be honest. Contador is one of the best stage racers ever and Richie won nearly every race he did last year, so to beat those two - I can't really believe it,” said Thomas.
"I came here trying to win and do the best I could, but to actually do it is amazing. It's the biggest win of my career, for sure, and I'm over the moon.”
Great Britain short track speed skating head coach Nick Gooch declared himself a satisfied man after his team finished the World Championships with three top-ten positions, including an overall third-place ranking for Elise Christie. European champion Christie had picked up a bronze medal in the 1500m on Saturday, bouncing back from being knocked out of the 500m event at the quarter-final stage. And she was in even better form on Sunday as she executed her race tactics to pick up a silver in the 1000m behind Choi Min-Jeong. She then took part in the 3000m Super Final, picking up enough points to ensure she finished third overall in the standings behind champion Choi. “I started the season with a goal of becoming world champion in a distance bu unfortunately after my ankle injury in September my confidence took a turn for the worse and I never fully got it back,” said Christie. “However, it's still been my best season ever. European champion in three distances and overall World Cup success, two world championship distance medals and an overall medal.”
Elsewhere Jack Whelbourne rounded off a season disrupted by injury by finishing ninth overall with Charlotte Gilmartin tenth overall in the women’s world rankings. Gooch said: "I'm really proud of the way the athletes performed. Charlotte Gilmartin has made big progress throughout the season and Jack Whelbourne has shown great resilience to overcome injury and perform with so little preparation." Read more here Sportsbeat 2016