CYCLING: Current road race world champion Lotte Kopecky stormed to the European Time Trial gold medal after winning Wednesday’s race on her home Belgian roads by 44 seconds from four-time champion Ellen van Dijk.

Christina Schweinberger was a further 19 seconds behind in third.

Italy’s Edoardo Affini won the men’s event by 10 seconds from pre-race favourite Stefan Kung with Affini’s compatriot Mattia Cattaneo in third.

MEN’S CRICKET: Essex have been deducted 12 points from their County Championship total after opener Feroze Khushi’s bat was found to have exceeded a width of 10.8 centimetres width during their 254-run win against Nottinghamshire in the opening game of the season.

Khushi had scores of just 18 and 32 in the match. Durham were docked 10 points after Nic Maddinson’s bat failed a similar test in 2022.

MEN’S TENNIS: Billy Harris beat Otto Virtanen 6-4,7-6 (7-4) in Manchester on Wednesday to seal Britain’s victory over Finland in their first Davis Cup Group D game.

Dan Evans had earlier beaten Eero Vasa 7-6 (7-3), 6-2 but partnered Neal Skupski to a 7-6 (7-4), 7-5 defeat against Virtanen and Harri Heliovaara in the doubles.

Britain face an Argentinian team on Friday that lost their first match 2-1 to Canada.

MEN’S FOOTBALL: Diego Gomez scored the only goal of the game as Paraguay edged to a 1-0 win over Brazil in Wednesday’s World Cup qualifier in Asuncion.

The Brazilians have now lost four of their last five qualifiers and sit fifth in the group eight points behind leaders Argentina and just one ahead of Paraguay.

Unbeaten Colombia are second in the table after avenging their Copa America defeat by beating the Argentinians 2-0.