Team GB in golden form as six medals are won on a Wonderful Wednesday
By Andy Charles
Last Updated: 11/08/16 11:38am
Wednesday proved to be a memorable day for Team GB as six medals – two of them gold – were secured on day five of the Olympic Games in Rio de Janeiro.
The day dawned with Great Britain on six medals but it finished with that tally having been doubled, victories coming in a variety of sports, some of which might not always have been thought of as providing decent chances.
Britain's best hope, going into the day at least, appeared to rest with three-time Tour de France winner Chris Froome in the men's time-trial.
But Froome was behind the clock for almost all of the race and needed a little bit of help to claim a bronze medal, matching his result from London 2012 where he finished behind Sir Bradley Wiggins.
Swiss great Fabian Cancellara won gold for the second time in his career - he retires at the end of the season - with Dutch rider Tom Dumoulin finishing second.
Rohan Dennis of Australia appeared to be on his way to a medal but had to make a bike change late in his effort and the time lost dropped him from a possible silver into fifth place.
The 23-year-old clocked a winning time of 88.53 seconds to narrowly beat Peter Kauzer of Slovenia, while Jiri Prskavec took bronze for the Czech Republic.
Scott and Kneale were defeated in their respective semi-finals, setting up a shoot-off for bronze which Scott won 30-28.
There was also history in the event when Kuwait's Fehaid Al Deehani became the first Independent Olympic Athlete to win gold.
Conway came close to reaching the -70kg final but lost to Colombia's Yuri Alvear on a golden score.
Laugher and Mears led for the second half of the six-dive contest but had to perform a superb closing effort to see off the challenge of America's Michael Hixon and Sam Dorman.
The Chinese pairing of Cao Yuan and Qin Kai had a chance to knock them out of top spot as well, but a poor final dive meant victory for the reigning Commonwealth and European champions.
Whitlock led after the first rotation, having excelled again on the pommel horse, but he was soon pegged back by eventual champion Kohei Uchimura and Oleg Verniaiev of Ukraine.
Verniaiev looked like upsetting the defending champion but he made mistakes on his final apparatus to hand the Japanese star gold.
Rain proved a problem for Britain's rowing team with none of Wednesday's races going ahead.
And tennis was also badly affected by the bad weather that struck Rio, meaning Andy Murray and Johanna Konta were forced to wait until Thursday for their next game.
Konta will face second seed Angelique Kerber in the women's singles while Wimbledon champion Murray takes on Italy's Fabio Fognini.
There was disappointment in the pool for Andrew Willis, who was beaten by less than a tenth of a second into fourth in the 200m breaststroke final.
Duncan Scott finished fifth in the final of the men's 100m freestyle and there was a British record for Molly Renshaw in the semi-finals of the women's 200m breaststroke.
Renshaw swam 2:22.33 to beat Chloe Tutton's record by one hundredth with Tutton also securing a place in the final.
Thanks to Dan Bibby's try they move on to face South Africa on Thursday for a place in the final.
Britain beat New Zealand 21-19 earlier on Wednesday and the All Blacks exited the competition against favourites Fiji.
But the men face an early exit after going down 2-1 to Australia. They must better New Zealand's result in their final game to have a chance of reaching the last-eight but face unbeaten Spain.
