Team GB secured their first gold medals of Paris 2024 as Tom Pidcock survived a puncture to win a thrilling men's cross-country mountain bike final, with equestrian gold also secured in team eventing; Tom Daley, in his fifth Olympic Games, claimed silver in men's 10m synchro diving final
Monday 29 July 2024 22:09, UK
Team GB won six medals on day three of the Paris Olympics, including Tom Pidcock winning a thrilling mountain bike final and Tom Daley claiming diving silver.
Pidcock stormed back from a front tyre puncture to defend his Olympic gold from Tokyo three years ago, overtaking French hope Victor Koretzky on the final lap.
His race was in danger of unravelling when he found himself 35 seconds adrift after suffering from a flat front tyre on the fourth of eight laps of the 4.4 km circuit carved in to Elancourt Hill.
But Pidcock fought his way back to reclaim the lead with a lap and a half to go, before the lead changed hands twice more in the last couple of kilometres - the pair dramatically touching wheels at one point before the Brit burst forward to take the win.
The partisan French crowd booed him as he crossed the line nine seconds ahead of Koretzky, with South Africa's Alan Hatherly in third.
Pidcock, who had to pull out of the Tour de France about two weeks ago when he contracted COVID-19, joins Paola Pezzo and Julien Absalon as the only riders with two mountain bike Olympic gold medals.
"It wasn't easy," Pidcock told the BBC. "The Olympics is so special and you never give up. You give everything and that's what I had to do. I knew Victor [Koretzky] was going to be superfast on the last lap. I knew it was going to be a big, big fight. He left a gap and I had to go for it.
"That's racing. Some people might do it differently but I wanted to show what the sport is. Not giving up. It's a shame the French were booing me."
Earlier on Monday, Daley and partner Noah Williams produced six brilliant dives in the men's 10m synchro diving final to take home the silver medal.
The pair were ultimately beaten into the gold medal position by flawless Chinese duo Lian Junjie and Hao Yang, who led from the first round and finished on 490.35 points.
Daley and Williams finished on 463.44 points, while Canada's Ryan Wiens and Nathan Zsombor-Murray claimed the bronze.
Daley was competing at a fifth Olympic Games, returning from a two-year break from diving after he won gold during the delayed 2021 Tokyo Games.
Daley's husband Dustin Lance Black and sons, Robbie and Phoenix, were in attendance, with the 30-year-old having said that being able to dive in front of them at an Olympics was a factor in his decision to return.
His silver in Paris is his fifth Olympic medal and sees him complete the set, as he secured three bronze medals across his home games in London 2012, Rio 2016 and in the 10m platform at Tokyo to go with his synchro gold.
"It's just so special," Daley told the BBC. "To be here, in Paris, diving in front of my son [Robbie], who actually asked me to come back, it's just so special. He's six years old now and I think he might remember some of this. It completes the set. I now have one of every colour."
On the possibility of also competing in four years' time at Los Angeles 2028, Daley added: "I don't know. Right now I want to enjoy today and then we'll see what the future holds."
Team GB won their first gold medal of Paris 2024 as equestrian eventing riders Ros Canter, Laura Collett and Tom McEwen emerged victorious in the team event on Monday.
The British team ended the three-day competition with a combined score of 91.3 penalty points, ahead of France in silver with 103.6 and Japan who took the bronze with 115.8.
It's a fifth gold for Team GB since eventing has been on the Olympic programme, making them the most successful eventing nation ever.
"I am on top of the world," Collett, who was secured an individual eventing bronze, told the BBC. "I have never ridden in an atmosphere like that. Thankfully I have a trusty horse and team-mates as well and thankfully we brought it home."
McEwen said: "It was a class last round from Laura to get the gold, the first of the Games. It has been a rollercoaster but we rose to the occasion."
Elsewhere on Monday, Team GB's Adam Burgess won a silver medal in the men's canoe single final.
It was redemption for Burgess, who avenged his maiden final from three summers ago in Tokyo, where he finished fourth and missed out on a medal by just 0.16 seconds.
In swimming, Matt Richards defied being in an outside lane to claim Olympic silver in the men's 200m freestyle - but he missed out on gold by an agonising two-hundredths of a second to Romanian sensation David Popovici.
Duncan Scott - who won silver in the event at Tokyo 2020 - finished fourth in the same event, while Freya Constance Colbert also just missed out on a medal in the women's 400m individual medley.
Angharad Evans finished sixth in the women's 100m breaststroke and Ollie Morgan last of the eight in the men's 100m backstroke final.
Dan Evans crashed out in the second round of the men's tennis singles, losing in straight sets to Greece's Stefanos Tsitsipas, as Neal Skupski and Joe Salisbury lost in the men's doubles.
Delicious Orie felt Olympic gold was been "taken away" from him after losing by split decision to Davit Chaloyan in the men's boxing, with the super-heavyweight becoming the fourth British boxer to exit the Games without a victory.
There was disappointment in the men's team archery for Team GB's squad of Tom Hall, Conor Hall and Alex Wise as they failed to make the quarter-finals, losing to fifth seeds Chinese Taipei, while Team GB finished fourth in the team all-around final of men's artistic gymnastics.
British judo star Lele Nairne's Olympic hopes were also ended with a 10-0 first-round defeat to Eteri Liparteliani of Georgia in the under-57 kilograms category.
The women's hockey team lost 4-0 to Australia and the women's rugby sevens team saw their medal hopes ended by a quarter-final loss to the United States, as Liam Pitchford recorded a dominant 4-0 win against Fiji's Vicky Wu in the table tennis men's singles.
And in the women's badminton, Team GB's Kirsty Gilmour saw off Azerbaijan's Keisha Fatimah Azzahra in her first group match, winning 2-0 in straight sets (21-13 21-11). Ben Lane and Sean Vendy won their final group match but did not qualify for the quarter-finals.
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