Tom Pidcock wins European gold in mountain bike cross-country

Olympic champion Tom Pidcock won gold in the mountain bike cross-country at the European Championships in Munich, producing a dominant performance to win by 11 seconds.

"It was a pretty hard race," Pidcock said. "I kind of made it hard for myself because on this course with that speed, riding out front by myself makes it all that much harder.

"I crashed on the first corner - at least it was dry. If it was it would have been an even bigger crash but thankfully it wasn’t too bad and I managed to get back to the front.

"There’s still a couple of world championships to go (this year) so I’m not finished yet."

Earlier in the day, Keely Hodgkinson overcame another morning start to breeze into the women’s 800 metres final at the Olympic Stadium.

Hodgkinson won her heat in two minutes 00.67 seconds, with the Commonwealth Games and World Championship silver medallist joined in Saturday’s final by fellow Britons Jemma Reekie and Alexandra Bell.

"Whoever wrote the schedule I want a word with them because 7am two days in a row is not for me," Hodgkinson told the BBC.

"I just wanted to make sure I got through by using as little energy as possible. It was all about controlling, saving energy, and getting through."

Morgan Lake qualified for the women’s high jump final with 1.87 metres, but Laura Zialor missed out after three faults at her first height.

Great Britain and Northern Ireland’s relay squads showed impressive form to make their respective finals in both the 4x100m and 4x400m.

Asha Philip, who missed the individual event after testing positive for Covid, was part of the women’s 4x100m quartet which qualified fastest in 42.82 seconds.