Image source, getty

Britain's Lizzie Armitstead - who won silver at London 2012 - believes that she is ready to go one better after being crowned world champion in Richmond, Virginia earlier this year.

"This year has been the best of my career and it has been one in which all the experience and hard work has paid off and the made the difference after my previous near-misses," she said. 

"People have been asking me how I would cope with the extra pressure of being a world champion but I see it as a really positive thing - I will go to Rio knowing I have performed on a big stage already, under massive pressure, and become the best in the world."

It is news we were expecting but now it is official, Northampton Town's future has been secured after an agreement was signed to stop a hearing that could have seen the club go into administration.

Roger Federer has confirmed that he will team up with Martina Hingis to form a Swiss super team at the Rio 2016 mixed doubles.

“I’m very excited about that because I haven’t played with her I guess in 15 years," he told Sport 360., external

“I looked up to her when I was younger, I thought she was the most unbelievable talent. 

"She’s almost my age and she was winning grand slams while I was still at the national tennis centre, trying to make it on the tour and I couldn’t believe how good she was. I’m very excited about that.”

Image source, Getty Images

Ivory Coast and Manchester City midfielder Yaya Toure is named BBC African Footballer of the Year for 2015.

Image source, Getty

Former world heavyweight champion David Hayehas vowed that he will meet the division's rising star Anthony Joshua in the ring "very shortly".

Joshua takes on Dillian Whyte - who inflicted an amateur defeat on him earlier in their careers - on Saturday. Haye meanwhile will make his return after three and a half years out of the sport against Italy's Mark di Mori on 16 January.

“Hopefully I get through my fight and he gets through his fights, then without a doubt our paths are going to pass very shortly – a world title, eliminator for a world title,”Haye said., external

“If he keeps doing what he’s doing, there’s no doubt we’ll fight at some stage.”

Image source, Getty Images

We are very close to finding out the winner of the 2015 BBC African Footballer of the Year.

If you have access to BBC World News, World Service, you can get across our live announcement right now.

Algeria's Yacine Brahimi, the 2014 winner, is on the shortlist along with Gabon's Pierre-Emerick Aubameyang, Ghanaian Andre Ayew,Senegal's Sadio Mane and Yaya Toure of Ivory Coast.

Claudio Ranieri says they can still do it, Jose Mourinho says he 'dreams' of it, but will Chelsea finish in the top four of the Premier League this season? 

Have your say by taking part in the vote above. 

Our full terms and conditions can be found here. 

Image source, Reuters

Image source, Getty Images

Jaguar Land Rover are set to enter the Formula E electric racing series in the 2016-17 season according to Reuters.

"We have some really important news coming up that will reinforce the momentum of the championship," Formula E chief executive Alejandro Agag told the news agency.

"While the Spaniard gave no names, an informed source told Reuters separately that Jaguar, owned by India's Tata Motors, were planning to enter in the 2016-17 season," their report continued.

Cornelius Lysaght
BBC Sport horse racing correspondent

Trainer Venetia Williams is set to aim wide-margin Cheltenham winner Aachen (1-45) at winning her Herefordshire-based stable a second Aintree Grand National in April. 

Williams is one of only three female trainers (Jenny Pitman and Sue Smith are the others) to have landed the famous prize having won it with 100-1 shot Mon Mome in 2009. 

You can see all of today's racing results here. 

Image source, Getty Images

Norwich and Northern Ireland winger Kyle Lafferty could be set for a return to Serie A side Palermo.

The 28-year-old had been linked with Leeds but the Yorkshire Evening Post , externalreport that Palermo, where Lafferty spent a successful 2013-14 campaign, want to bring him back to Italy.

Image source, Getty Images

Manchester United winger Adnan Januzaj says that he does not know if he will return to Old Trafford from his loan spell with German side Borussia Dortmund.

“I don’t know," the 20-year-old Belgian replied, external when asked about his future beyond the end of the season.

“I wanted to join somewhere I could play and there were a few things behind that were a problem but I’m happy here. I just need more games to play and then I’ll be fine.”

Januzaj started his first game since October in Dortmund's Europa League defeat to PAOK and was rated a humiliating 1/10 by German newspapers WAZ and Ruhr Nachrichten, external.

Nottingham Forestmanager Dougie Freedman says the club are on course to come out of their transfer embargo, and believes their results over the next month will determine if they aregood enough to challenge for promotion.

Image source, Getty Images

Forest made a slow start to the season and are 15th in the Championship, but three successive home wins have lifted them to within six points of the top six.

Freedman told BBC Nottingham: "Now you are seeing the club stabilising off the field and a consistency on the field, we are only going to get stronger. Right now we are in a good place." 

Follow live text commentary of Friday's two Championship matches, including Forest's game at Wolves, on the BBC Sport website from 19:30 GMT.

Image source, Richard Harris, Express & Star

Wolves skipper Danny Batth is to help highlight the problem of homelessness by selling copies of the Big Issue outside the club shop for two hours on Saturday afternoon.

The 25-year-old has time available because their Championship game against Nottingham Forest takes place this evening.

"People wrongly stereotype Big Issue sellers. They think they must have a drug problem or something. The majority are either homeless or struggling in life," he said.

Andy Ellis, one of England's leading doubles players in the last decade, has announced his retirement from the sport with immediate effect.

Ellis, the 28-year-old from Leeds, left the national training centre in MiltonKeynes, external to seek fresh opportunities outside of badminton following changes to partners within the world-class performance programme.

"It's the toughest decision I've ever had to make," said Ellis.

Following last week’s British Figure Skating Championships, the national governing body, National Ice Skating Association, has selected the skaters who will represent Great Britain at the European Figure Skating Championships. They are:

Ladies -Danielle Harrison

(1st reserve - Karly Robertson, 2nd reserve - Nina Povey)

Men -Phillip Harris

(1st reserve - Peter James Hallam, 2nd reserve - Jamie Wright)

Pairs -Amani Fancy/Christopher Boyadji

Ice Dance -Penny Coomes/Nicholas Buckland

(1st reserve - Carter Marie Jones/Richard Sharpe)    

Image source, National Ice Skating Association

John Southall
BBC Radio Five Live football reporter

Image source, Reuters

"We [press and Jose Mourinho] had a lively exchange over how Leicester's remarkable rise has mirrored Chelsea's decline. After fifteen games last season Chelsea were twenty six points ahead of them. My point being how can such a shift happen. The personnel is pretty much the same so how can Leicester go from the bottom of the Premier League to the top while Chelsea have dropped like a stone, so much so that they could fall into the bottom three this weekend, how is that possible ? You can hear Jose's response on 5 Live tonight from seven with George Riley.

"So after four press conferences in the space of eight days Jose will have to survive without us until Monday when the take on Leicester at the King Power Stadium. Anyone brave enough to predict which Chelsea will turn up?"

John Southall
BBC Radio Five Live football reporter

Image source, Getty Images

"It was the engaging Jose at Cobham this lunchtime as he spoke to the media for near on an hour. He was fulsome in his praise for Leicester and an old adversary Claudio Ranieri, stressing that if Leicester managed to win the league it would be 'magnificent'. He also admitted he's been forced to change his original view that Leicester couldn't win the title.

"Other highlights included a belief that Chelsea will still finish in the top four despite the current gap of 14 points and he also revealed that he feels embarrassed by the warmth and positive reaction he gets from the Chelsea fans despite the current plight."