Mark Cavendish's bid to become the sixth rider in cycling history to take the points jersey in all three Grand Tours fell short almost at the final fence yesterday when overall race contender Joaquim Rodriguez deprived the Briton of victory in the Giro d'Italia classification by just one point.

Great Britain’s 200m men displayed a show of force in the second canoeing world cup event of the year, winning two gold medals and a silver in Duisburg today.

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It was mostly downhill in stage 18 of the Giro d’Italia this afternoon as the riders descended a total of 900metres and Mark Cavendish narrowly lost out on a fourth stage win.  

Having taken three wins in this year’s Giro d’Italia, despite suffering just as many crashes, Mark Cavendish looks as strong as he ever has.

Dan Pfaff is best known in the coaching world as the man behind Donovan Bailey, the Canadian who blitzed to Olympic 100m gold in world record time in Atlanta in 1996. He also had a brief spell guiding Marion Jones and Tim Montgomery that ended acrimoniously before the golden couple became embroiled in the Balco drugs scandal.

Hospitality provider has spaces at many key Olympic events, does deal with Ticketmaster

Mark Cavendish convincingly took his third stage win of the Giro d’Italia this afternoon as he battled against former team mates Mark Renshaw and Matt Goss.

Roberto Ferrari yesterday won the longest stage of this year's Giro d'Italia, from Assisi to Montecatini, as Great Britain's Mark Cavendish finished fourth.

Yet again the strength in depth of the Classic generation at Ballydoyle is inviting invidious comparisons with the Turf's other superpowers. At Godolphin, in particular, a recent mood of renewal was abruptly suspended after both the first two Classics were won by their great rivals. Godolphin failed even to muster a runner in the 2,000 Guineas, while its two fancied fillies in the 1,000 Guineas both finished tailed off. The stakes will be uncomfortably high, then, when the unbeaten Mandaean measures his Investec Derby prospects in the Betfred Dante Stakes at York tomorrow. And there is commensurate significance, surely, in the fact that the imported colt will be ridden by another new recruit from France.

Mark Cavendish proved he is bang on track for his twin main targets of 2012, the Tour de France and the London Olympic road-race, with a stunning win in the first road stage of the Giro d'Italia yesterday.

Nature or nurture? Steve Redgrave is helping mentor a number of young athletes seeking to qualify for the London Olympics.

Jogging for as little as an hour a week can put years on your life, new research has shown.

Paula Radcliffe has vowed to lead a worldwide campaign to pressurise the World Anti-Doping Agency into applying tougher bans on drug cheats.