David Swift ends his nine-year wait for a first skeleton gold for Great Britain while Great Britain women name hockey squad for tour to Australia. Here’s all the latest from the last 24 hours.
After more than 80 senior races, skeleton’s David Swift can now boast having an international gold next to his name following his triumph in the penultimate race of the Europa Cup season in St Moritz.
In a competitive field which included 42 other sliders, Swift produced the two fastest start times, with his effort of 4.84 in the second run a full tenth of a second ahead of his closest rival.
The 2008 junior world championships silver medallist also produced a stunning second run overall to finish 0.67 seconds ahead of second-placed Fabian Kuechler.
Swift has competed on both the World Cup and Intercontinental Cup circuits so far this season and will be hoping to earn a spot on the team for the World Championships when it is announced in early February.
“It’s taken a long time, but it’s such a nice feeling hearing your national anthem blaring out above the podium,” said 31-year-old Swift, who has previously won bronze and silver medals on both the Intercontinental Cup and Europa Cup circuits.
“Training had gone really well this week and last so I had fairly high expectations but there’s a big difference between performing well in training and racing, and that’s something I’ve struggled with historically.
“It definitely gives me confidence going forward for the remainder of the season. I’m keen to build momentum now and perform where it matters.”
Danny Kerry says a six-test series in Australia is the perfect chance to help his side gel in an Olympic year, after naming a 22-strong squad for the trip Down Under.
Seven players who did not feature in December's World League Finals in Rosario have been included in the squad with Giselle Ansley, Susie Gilbert, Sarah Haycroft, Sarah Robertson and Zoe Shipperley coming in, while Shona McCallin and Sophie Bray return from injury.
The competition brings with it the potential for a number of landmarks for players – most notably skipper Kate Richardson who can become Britain's all-time leader in appearances if she plays in three of the six tests.
The first of the matches will take place on February 12 with the six matches forming part of the preparation for the Champions trophy and then Olympic Games in Rio.
"We will be using the training and the test series to give the squad exposure to a different style of hockey to the one they would typically face in Europe," said Kerry.
"It is a good opportunity for us to develop as a group with an extended period of matches in an overseas environment.”
Nick Buckland Penny Coomes got their European Figure Skating Championships off to a solid start with a seventh place in the short dance in Bratislava, Slovakia.
The British duo, who are making their major international championship return having missed the previous European and World Championships through injury, scored 64.26 from the judges for their routine.
Italians Luca Lanotte and Anna Cappellini took top spot on the leaderboard with 72.31.
The ice dance culminates on Saturday afternoon with the free dance programme.
England’s table tennis players fell short of reaching the top 16 seeds in the main draw of the German Open after defeats in their respective matches.
Needing to win two games to join the top seeds, Liam Pitchford was pitted against a player 30 places above him on the world list and, while taking the first set, eventually succumbed 4-2.
Paul Drinkhall endured a couple of marathon games against world number 53 Weixing Chen but also lost out 4-0 while Sam Walker was unable to match his defeat of Kim Donghyun in the previous round as he also lost out 4-0 to Kirill Skachkov of Russia.
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