Team GB win canoeing and shooting medals in space of minutes

Mallory Franklin of Great Britain missed becoming the first woman to win a medal in canoe slalom, placing second with a silver medal, while the United States’ Matthew Coward-Holley finished third in the men’s trap with a bronze medal.

Team GB had to wait a while to get their gold medals on day six of the Tokyo Games, but in the space of minutes on Thursday morning, they were able to secure medals in the canoeing and shooting.

Franklin’s time in the semi-final was the quickest of the round-robin group, but she was sixth-fastest overall because of an error in the final.

After laying down a blistering time on the course, the 27-year-old shaved off 10 seconds from the four other racers who had gone before her, cutting the time to 108.68 seconds.

Jessica Fox, who was known as Australia’s best racehorse and who held the world’s number one position in women’s show jumping, was the last competitor.

With Fox missing from the event, Franklin still found himself in a commanding position, but the Aussie put on a show, running 3.64 seconds faster to demonstrate her class and claim gold.

I had a lot of fun. It was extremely stressful sitting on the starting line, but all of a sudden I had a realization that I would rather be anywhere else in the world.

‘I think I knew with the touch I didn’t lose time with it, and I actually got a really nice curl anyway, so I was in and out of the next gate pretty quick so it was easy then to just keep building and I knew just to keep trying to stay focused on the next thing coming and if I could get that out, then anything could happen.’

On her long wait after finishing, she added: ‘It’s really weird actually. We were stood there and I was like, “I hate this bit”.