Sport-in-brief - your weekly update from the high performance sports community
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UK Sport 05 September 2014
Badminton
Last week’s Li-Ning BWF World Championships ended with disappointment as British athletes were unable to progress through to the finals in Copenhagen’s Ballerup Super Arena.
Team England's Commonwealth Games bronze medallists Chris Langridge and Peter Mills lost 21-14 21-11 to number eight seeds Liu Xiaolong and Qiu Zihan. Chris and Gabby Adcock were also knocked out of the World Badminton Championships mixed doubles, falling to China’s Cheng Liu and Yixin Bao 21-16 26-24.
Rajiv Ouseph struggled to reproduce the form which took him past 16th seed Chong Wei Feng when he went out 21-18 21-13 against Kidambi Srikanth of India.
The shock of the tournament came from Kirsty Gilmour, as she suffered a surprise 21-15 21-15 defeat to Germany’s Karin Schnaase.
You can find out more at Badminton England
Cycling
Great Britain won eight medals out of eight events at the 2014 UCI Para-Cycling Road World Championships in Greenville, South Carolina, including three world championship titles; two for Dame Sarah Story, in the C5 road race and time trial, and one for Lora Turnham and Corrine Hall in the B/VI tandem road race. Turnham and Hall also took bronze in the B/VI tandem time trial, while Karen Darke won silver in the H3 time trial and bronze in her road race and David Stone took silver in the T2 road race and bronze in his time trial.
British Cycling has named the long list of selected riders who will represent Great Britain at the forthcoming UCI Road World Championships, taking place in Ponferrada, Spain from 21 – 28 September 2014, which includes London 2012 Olympic Champion Sir Bradley Wiggins and recent Glasgow 2014 Commonwealth Games Champions Geraint Thomas and Lizzie Armistead.
The UCI Mountain Bike World Championships are currently underway in Norway. Reports, results and reaction will appear on the British Cycling website.
You can find out more at British Cycling
Equestrian
Great Britain’s riders qualified Dressage, Eventing and Para-Equestrian Dressage teams for the Rio 2016 Olympic and Paralympic Games with some outstanding performances at the Alltech, FEI World Equestrian Games in Normandy, France.
The Dressage and Eventing teams secured their places by finishing in second place overall, with William Fox-Pitt winning bronze in the individual event. The Great Britain team totally dominated the Para-Equestrian Dressage to finish first by a wide margin with Lee Pearson and Sophie Christiansen among the gold medallists.
You can find out more at British Equestrian Federation
Judo
The International Judo Federation (IJF) World Championships took place in Chelyabinsk, Russia last week with Great Britain sending out a four strong team.
Commonwealth gold medallist Ashley McKenzie (-60kg) had a fantastic start, beating Ludwig Paicher. In his second match he continued in a winning vein to beat Mexican Nabor Castillo by a yuko score. Unfortunately he was overcome by eventual World bronze medallist Amiran Papinashvili of Georgia who took him for ippon one stage short of the pool final.
Fellow Commonwealth Champion Colin Oates (-66kg) won by ippon to Chol Kim of the Peoples Republic of Korea and then scored another against Jesus Gavinda Mendoza of Peru but fell at the last hurdle losing to Japan's Kengo Takaichi by a single yuko.
Commonwealth Champion Natalie Powell (-78kg) and Glasgow Games bronze medallist Sally Conway (-70kg) faced personal disappointment as they both exited in their first rounds.
Despite not bringing home a medal, it will be a valuable lesson and learning experience for the talented squad.
You can find out more at British Judo
Modern Pentathlon
At the on-going World Championships in Warsaw, Poland, two of Britain’s young athletes have qualified for the men’s individual final. Jamie Cooke finished a respectable fifth in his semi-final yesterday, whilst Joe Choong qualified after finishing top of the ‘next highest points scorer’ position. Teammates Sam Curry and Joe Evans, however, just missed out on a place in Saturday’s final.
Samantha Murray, Kate French and Freyja Prentice all qualified from the women’s heats on Wednesday to reach today’s (05/09/14) ongoing women’s finals.. As nominated scorers, their progress will also contribute to Britain’s hunt for a team medal.
You can find out more at Pentathlon GB
Rowing
Great Britain enjoyed a highly successful World Rowing Championships in Amsterdam, winning eight medals in Olympic and Paralympic disciplines and the Women’s Pair setting a new world record.
Helen Glover and Heather Stanning achieved the new world best time of 6:50:61 to win gold in Holland. The Olympic champions were rowing together for the first time at a World Championships since Stanning took a break from the sport to focus on her army career.
Helen Glover said: “When Heather turned round to look at me after we crossed the line, I was saying 'thanks'. It's something I am really proud of achieving."
There were also world titles in the Men’s Four, the Men’s Eight and the Para –Rowing Mixed Coxed Four. GB Rowing won 10 medals in total with success in two non-Olympic events. The nation's top rowers will be back in action in the UK at the British Championships in Nottingham in October.
You can find out more at British Rowing
Para Table Tennis
World number one Rob Davies and Paralympic silver medalist Will Bayley head a squad of nine players who will represent GB in the World Para Table Tennis Championships, which gets underway tomorrow (Saturday 6 September) in China.
Davies, a former rugby player from Brecon who was crowned European champion last year, will be one of the favourites for gold in the men’s class one singles, while 26 year old Bayley will be bidding for a first World Championship medal after taking men’s class 7 European gold in 2011, Paralympic silver in London 2012 and European silver in 2013.
Will Bayley (class 7)
Jane Campbell (class 3)
Rob Davies (class 1)
Kim Daybell (class 10)
Sue Gilroy (class 4)
Sara Head (class 3)
Jack Hunter-Spivey (class 5)
Paul Karabardak (class 7)
Aaron McKibbin (class 8)
You can find out more at BTTAD
Triathlon
Great Britain won two gold medals and eight medals in total at the ITU Paratriathlon World Championship event in Edmonton, Canada. Alison Patrick and Lauren Steadman were the gold medal winners for Britain in a very competitive World Championships where athletes from thirteen different countries won medals.
Alistair Brownlee took victory at the TransCanada Corp. World Triathlon Grand Final. Spain’s Javier Gomez won the ITU world title for the fourth time, with team mate Mario Mola taking second place overall in the Series and Jonathan Brownlee third. Alistair Brownlee was fourth despite having done one less race than the others.
Jodie Stimpson finished 13th at the TransCanada Corp. World Triathlon Grand Final, putting her fourth overall in the ITU World Triathlon Series.
You can find out more at British Triathlon