Barclay Izzard secured a top 10 finish at the European Games for Team GB as he held on to cross the line in ninth place. Further back Connor Bentley finished 32nd ahead of teammate Hamish Reilly, who after a puncture on the bike finished 38th.

Izzard, who came from a minute behind to record his best finish of the year, said: “I felt my run could have been a bit better, but I had to work really hard on the bike to try and catch up.

“When I got up to the front, I was happy I was there as I’d worked really hard for it. My run just wasn’t there today but I’m still happy with my race.”

It was Bentley who started the race the strongest out of the British trio as he exited the water in sixth place level with German athlete Cedric Osterholt. Reilly was 13 seconds off Dutch leader Mitch Kolkman with Izzard back in 37^th.

Coming out of T1 Bentley settled into the pack and was second at the 5k mark, just behind German Simon Henseleit. At this stage Reilly was close by in 16^th, just five seconds behind with Izzard occupying 34^th place. As the bike progressed Reilly’s strong ride was halted as he had to pull over to fix a front wheel puncture, which dropped him down to 41^st. That left Bentley as the only Brit at the front of the field with Izzard almost a minute behind. Izzard and Reilly were over a minute behind as the race headed towards the 20km mark with Bentley now trading top spot with Greece’s Panagiotis and Austria’s Leon Pauger. During the next 10k Izzard upped the pace and closed the gap to the leaders and teammate Bentley, creating a large group of 44 racers all separated by just nine seconds. Reilly was also closing the gap in 45^th place.

That front pack stuck together until just before T2 where a large crash left several riders cut a drift. Both Bentley and Izzard made it through unscathed though and exited T2 together in eighth and ninth respectively with Reilly now 01:40 behind the lead group in 44^th.

Izzard continued his strong pace on the run and pulled away with 10 other athletes in an attempt to stay within medal contention. The Brit was in contention until the 7.5k mark where he had fallen nine seconds behind and sat 11th as the breakaway group had become six. During the final stages of the race, he clawed his way back into the top 10 finishing in ninth between Italian duo Ginaluca Pozzaatti (eighth) and Michele Sarzilla (tenth). Bentley was the next Brit to cross the line in 01:23:44 to finish 32^nd with Reilly coming home in 38^th.

In the women’s elite race Sian Rainsley finished 11^th with Sophie Alden and Hollie Elliott coming 18^th and 28^th respectively. Read how their races unfolded here.