Brit duo scrape into diving semi-final (From Hampshire Chronicle)

Brit duo scrape into diving semi-final

5:13pm Friday 3rd August 2012 in National Sport News © Press Association 2013

Becky Gallantree and Hannah Starling have scraped through to the semi-final of the women's Olympic three-metre springboard competition at the Aquatics Centre.

Gallantree failed to get past the preliminary round in Beijing four years ago but a score of 299.25 was enough to see her finish 16th and just inside the 18-diver cut. Starling was fractionally behind her fellow Briton with a total of 298.95 placing her 17th.

"It feels great," said Gallantree. "I'm really, really happy to be through to the semi-final and hopefully I can make some improvements for the semi-final and I can go out there and enjoy it again."

Fred Evans pulled out one of the best final rounds of his career to claim a dramatic revenge victory over Lithuanian puncher Egidijus Kavaliauskas and move within one more win of a guaranteed Olympic welterweight medal.

Evans and his opponent were locked together at 5-5 after two rounds of an absorbing contest, but a spectacular finish saw the Welshman start with a succession of scoring rights and charge home for an ultimately comfortable 11-7 win.

Great Britain women's handball team's tough introduction to the Olympic Games continued as they slumped to a fourth successive Group A defeat at the hands of Angola, a 31-25 loss ending any faint hopes of progressing to the quarter-finals.

Losses to Montenegro, Russia and Brazil in their opening three matches were par for the course, after only forming six years ago, but they went into the day's opening encounter at the Copper Box with realistic hopes of beating the African champions, having done exactly that in this arena in November's test event.

However, it was sloppy play in the attacking third that really cost Team GB, with too many missed chances and handling errors preventing them from recording a historic Olympic win.

Great Britain's women fell at the first hurdle in the table tennis team event. The girls' task was always going to be difficult given they were alongside the bottom eight seeds in the 16-team draw. Yet Joanna Parker, Kelly Sibley and Na Liu were buoyed last week by being tied with the lowest-ranked potential opponent in North Korea.

However, the British trio - sitting 119th, 177th and 153rd in the rankings respectively - were soundly beaten by the Asian powerhouse, whose side comprised of Ri Myong-Sun, Kim Jong and Ri Mi-Gyong. That means the men - Paul Drinkhall, Liam Pitchford and Andrew Baggaley - are the only players flying the flag for British table tennis at the Games.