EXCLUSIVE BY DAVID COVERDALE: British women have been tipped to make history in Tokyo, with the head of Team GB boldly predicting that 2020 will be 'the year of the female Olympian'.

EXCLUSIVE INTERVIEW BY RIATH AL-SAMARRAI: I'll tell you one that surprised me - it was a message from my language tutor,' says Katarina Johnson-Thompson.

Great Britain took their first steps towards the next Winter Olympics when they emerged from the opening game of their qualifying tournament in Nottingham with a hard-fought 4-3 victory.

Athletes have accused World Athletics of favouring Nike in the wake of their new regulations to tackle the growing controversy around racing shoes.

Great Britain set up a winner takes all encounter against old rivals Hungary in Nottingham on Sunday when they took another step on the road to the Beijing Winter Olympics by beating Estonia 7-1.

Jemma Reekie's astonishing early-season form has continued with a third national record in the space of two races. The 21-year-old set new bests in the 1500m and mile in New York.

Great Britain's hopes of reaching the next Winter Olympics were dashed on Sunday when they were defeated 4-1 by their old rivals Hungary in a winner takes all clash.

British Cycling was subjected to a UK Sport review into the culture of its elite programme in 2016, but the sheer scope and breadth of this look into UK Athletics is thought to be unprecedented.

Arnold, whose 46-year coaching career yielded over 70 major medals, said: 'After London 2012 and the opportunity that brought, you have to wonder how it has been allowed to get like this.'

EXCLUSIVE BY DAVID COVERDALE: Alex Partridge won silver at the 2008 Beijing Olympics and bronze at London 2012. The 39-year-old now tells Sportsmail about his battle with depression.

The upheaval and chaos at UK Athletics intensified on Thursday night with the surprise resignation of chairman Chris Clark.

Fallon Sherrock narrowly failed to create more history as she drew 6-6 with Glen Durrant at the Premier League in Nottingham after her PDC World Championship success in December.

The elephant in the room remains, running laps at improbable speed. It has been two weeks since Jemma Reekie came to wider attention with an astonishing performance - now she must talk.

Jemma Reekie's coach Andy Young believes the breakthrough star of British athletics packs enough of a kick to be an Olympic contender this summer after her victory in Glasgow on Saturday.

The world's fastest sailboat is set to complete its record-breaking journey around the world this week, making its arrival through the Thames. The IDEC Sport's crew are led by Francis Joyon.

Laura Lambert and Chief Sports Writer Martin Samuel are shortlisted for the Hugh McIlvanney Award for Sports Journalist of the Year.

Former Great Britain captain Alex Danson-Bennett has retired from hockey after failing to fully recover from a 'life-changing' head injury.

It is four years since Jason Kenny won three gold medals at the Rio Games, thus matching Sir Chris Hoy as Great Britain's most successful Olympian by bringing his tally to six.

EXCLUSIVE BY DAVID COVERDALE: Organisers of the 2022 Commonwealth Games are set to face a grilling after it was confirmed that the archery and shooting will be held in India.

If Laura Kenny wanted to forget about the injury she was told would rule her out of the Tokyo Olympics, her two-year-old son had other ideas.

British Cycling have been dealt a major financial blow after HSBC pulled the plug on their £20million sponsorship deal four years early.

The four-man, 4km event is one of Team GB's most successful in any Olympic sport - they won gold at Beijing 2008, London 2012 and Rio 2016. Veteran Ed Clancy was the only ever-present in those teams. 

It was left to Jason Kenny to add to the family's cycling silver after wife Laura defied doctor's orders but could not defy the odds.

RIATH AL-SAMARRAI: New levels of bemusement were attained with this week's revelations of how he changed his story about an L-carnitine infusion to USADA investigators.

DAVID COVERDALE: The British track cycling star went out at the last-16 stage and leaves Berlin with just the silver medal he won in the team sprint, having also failed to make Thursday's keirin final.

WILL JEANES IN MARRAKESH: Da Costa, who drives for DS Techeetah, had finished second in the previous two races of the season in Chile and Mexico but led from pole.

GEORGE BOND: The longest championship drought in the history of North American professional sport met its end deep in the webbing of Anthony Rizzo's right glove.

The coronavirus has rocked the sporting world this week with most taking measures to ensure that fans nor players are affected by the global pandemic that is spreading across the world.

World champion Mads Pedersen of Denmark has pulled out of the Paris-Nice race before the start of Saturday's final stage after his country asked its nationals to return amid the coronavirus outbreak.

World champion Judd Trump has become the first player to win six ranking titles in a season after beating Kyren Wilson 4-3 in the final of the BetVictor Gibraltar Open.

The Premier League Darts season has already thrown up plenty of surprises as it nears the half-way mark of the 2020 campaign. Here, Sportsmail takes a closer look at what we've learned.

While some British athletes are abroad training for the Olympics and will not be compelled to return, the firm advice from the organisation is against further travel out of the country from this point.

Sportsmail is shadowing seven British stars from a variety of sports as they prepare for Tokyo. Tom Bosworth takes the spotlight today. Here's an update on the other six...

EXCLUSIVE INTERVIEW: Race walker Tom Bosworth stands to miss out on as much as £20,000 this spring due to events that have been called off because of coronavirus.

EXCLUSIVE INTERVIEW BY RIATH AL-SAMARRAI: Daley Thompson doesn't break people and crush souls these days unless he absolutely has to. As it happens, he had to on the morning we met.

RIATH AL-SAMARRAI: Roman Abramovich, Gary Neville and anyone else who has had the decency to do what they can to help a few others in a unique time of crisis deserve enormous credit.

The World Snooker Championship is the latest major sporting event to be postponed because of the coronavirus. Judd Trump was due to start the defence of his title at the Crucible on April 18.

*'Footy is resilient and footy will find a way,' said not Jeff Goldblum in Jurassic Park but AFL chief executive Gillon McLachlan this week. Here are the sporting fixtures proving him right.

EXCLUSIVE BY DAVID COVERDALE: Sir Steve Redgrave has told Sportsmail that delaying the Olympic Games until the summer of 2021 'makes a lot of sense'.

Britain's double Olympic champion was due to retire from short-course triathlons to concentrate on the Ironman circuit. Brownlee, 31, said: 'I am now going to have to extend it for another year.'

RIATH AL-SAMARRAI: Amir Khan has proved himself to be a wonderful fighter and donating his four-storey building in Bolton to be a temporary hospital shows what he is as a man.

Three more events scheduled for May were postponed on Friday, but Diamond League organisers have claimed they're committed to delivering an 'extensive season' in 2020.

EXCLUSIVE BY DAVID COVERDALE: Ed Clancy has decided to delay his retirement by another year in a bid to win a historic fourth Olympic gold medal at the age of 36.

Top PDC Darts stars gave the phrase 'in the madhouse' a new meaning as they defied the global sporting shutdown to live-stream a tournament from the comfort of their respective living rooms.

Raymond van Barneveld triumphed over Phil Taylor in a stay-at-home darts match which raised £15,000 for the battle against coronavirus.

UK Athletics have brought forward plans to hire a new head coach in the wake of the postponement of the Olympics.

The Tour de France's organisers are focusing on a postponement of this year's race rather than a cancellation due to the coronavirus pandemic. 'Le Tour' was set to roll out of Nice on June 27th.

The extravaganza will consist of just over a month's worth of darting action, as live sport returns in a unique format to households despite the coronavirus lockdown.

He has conquered Alpe d'Huez and climbed Mont Ventoux. But Geraint Thomas is now embarking on the toughest test of his cycling career - without even leaving his garage.

The legendary road race is scheduled to start in Nice on June 27 but it will now either be postponed or scrapped altogether, with a decision expected later this week.