Dressage team trots to golden glory

Britain's dressage team has trotted to a historic victory over Germany to win Team GB's 20th gold of the London Olympic Games.

Team dressage has been dominated by Germany in every Games since 1984 - but the magic of London 2012 meant that this was yet another bastion to fall to an apparently unstoppable Team GB.

The team of Carl Hester, Laura Bechtolsheimer and Charlotte Dujardin put in an exquisite performance in this most rarefied of equine sports.

The dressage gold medal takes Britain's tally to 20 - one more than the 2008 Beijing Games, which were the country's most successful for a century.

With five full days of competition left it seems certain that Team GB will beat its Beijing haul of 47 medals.

The team now has 44 - 20 gold, 12 silver and 12 bronze. Britain's best-ever Olympics were the London Games of 1908 when it claimed an unsurpassable 146 medals - 56 golds, 51 silvers and 39 bronze.

Earlier the Brownlee brothers raced to Olympic glory in one of the most dramatic races yet at London 2012. Alistair Brownlee took gold in the triathlon and his brother Jonny won bronze despite being given a 15-second penalty.

As he closed in on victory Alistair grabbed a Union flag from the crowd, wrapped it around his shoulders and walked triumphantly across the finish line in Hyde Park. He waited to embrace his brother who overcame the penalty given for mounting his bike too quickly after swimming the Serpentine.

There was further success in Weymouth as Nick Dempsey took silver in the men's windsurfing.

But Phillips Idowu, the controversial 33-year-old Beijing silver medallist, crashed out of the triple jump when he failed to jump far enough to qualify for Thursday's final.