Double Olympic champion Laura Trott is back on top of the podium with another gold at the track cycling European Championships. Here's our review of the last 24 hours:
Laura Trott admitted she was using the scratch race as a ‘bit of a tester’ despite going on to claim her second gold medal of the European Track Championships. Having been part of the successful Great Britain women's pursuit team along with Katie Archibald, Elinor Barker and Joanna Rowsell Shand, Trott was back out in Switzerland as she entered the scratch race. The double Olympic champion had bided her time over the 10km but powered past the field to take the win from Holland's Kirsten Wild and Roxanne Fournier of France. And Trott admitted she had been using the scratch race a preparation for the omnium competition, which begins on Saturday. "We were using it as a bit of tester for tomorrow really because, obviously, the scratch race is the first race of the omnium so it was a bit of an activation," Trott told British Cycling. "I'd normally do a turbo session on the day between the team pursuit and the omnium. As it was a scratch race and only 40 laps we thought why not, I'll just do it and I just didn't panic, I guess. "It was like that little break went away and everyone was looking at me to work and I was like 'I don't need to work, this isn't my race to lose'." Meanwhile, Jonathan Dibben lies ninth in the overall standings after three of the six events in the men's omnium, 22 points behind leader Viktor Manakov of Russia. The Southampton-born rider finished fifth in the scratch race and fourth in the individual pursuit, but could only take 14th place in the elimination race. And Ollie Wood finished 15th in the men's points race with three points.
Andy Murray was in imperious form as he thrashed Tomas Berdych 6-1 6-3 to reach the Shanghai Masters semi-finals. The British world number two broke Berdych in the third game and saved two break points in the next before racing through the first set in 38 minutes. Murray made it nine successive games to get to 3-0 in the second set before securing a semi-final against Novak Djokovic on Saturday. "I felt I dictated the whole match," the 28-year-old Scot told Sky Sports. "Against someone serving as big as him, it's not always easy to do. I didn't have too much defending to do. I served well and got a good read on his serve."
GB Taekwondo performance director Gary Hall is staying positive despite a tough opening day for his team at Manchester's World Taekwondo Grand Prix. The morning saw six British fighters in action but only two reached the afternoon session as Carla Summerhill, Michael Harvey, Jordan Gayle and Lyle Walker all fell at the first hurdle. The two that advanced didn’t last much longer though, as Mahama Cho lost out to Iranian Omid Amidi in the -80kg event, while Martin Stamper lost 16-6 to Iran's Abolfazl Yaghoubijouybari in the last 16 in the -86kg category. But Hall is refusing to hit the panic button with plenty of action still to come. "It wasn't a great day for us really and we had a couple of good chances, one good fight from Martin, and a really good scalp for Cho," he said. "We've got some big hitters still to come into play and obviously it's a great home crowd so we're looking forward to the weekend. "We've got some really good talent still to go, we've got Jade Jones, we've got Bianca Walkden, we've got Damon Sansum. "We know our medal targets, we know what we want to do and we have got a really solid plan. "We've got a great team so we're just building on it and looking forward to Rio. "It's a tough qualification process, once you get to the Olympics you're down to the last 16, you've got a good chance of getting a medal, but the qualification process is still very very tough. "But it's the same for everybody and we've just got to make sure we plan and come out on top at the end of it." Sportsbeat 2015