Gymnast Alice Kinsella claimed Great Britain’s first medal of the multi-sport European Championships in Munich with silver in the women’s all around final.
Kinsella, who won Olympic bronze in the team final in Tokyo a year ago, achieved a combined score of 54.132 points to finish in second place behind Italy’s Asia D’Amato.
It is a third medal in just over a week for the 21-year-old, who won two gold medals representing Team England at the Commonwealth Games in Birmingham earlier this month.
It was also a strong performance overall from the British team with Kinsella, Jennifer and Jessica Gadirova, Georgia Mae-Fenton and Ondine Achampong qualifying in second place for the team final.
All five women also sealed their places in at least one individual final, rounding off a strong opening evening of action in the Olympiahalle.
“Obviously today I did have a few hiccups. I could improve on them and I feel like in gymnastics, you can always improve,” said Kinsella, who will individually contest the parallel bars final later in the Championships.
“Personally, growing up, I’d always wanted to win an all around medal at the Europeans.
“It has honestly been a dream of mine and I’m so proud and happy.”
The 🇬🇧 team qualifies in second for the team final on Saturday.
— British Gymnastics (@BritGymnastics) August 11, 2022
Into apparatus finals ➡️
Jessica Gadirova vault.
Alice Kinsella & Georgia-Mae Fenton Bars.
Ondine Achampong beam.
Jessica & Jennifer Gadirova floor.
🥳🇬🇧👏🏻 pic.twitter.com/agb6mVjpgI
Meanwhile, Olympic champion Charlotte Worthington cemented her status among the leading contenders for BMX freestyle gold as she breezed through qualification.
Worthington’s score of 82.30 saw her qualify in first place for Friday’s final, where she will be looking to defend the title that she won in 2019.
“It's a really good position to be heading into tomorrow - I've got a couple of things I want to try and get out there and practice and hopefully that can come to fruition,” said Worthington, who will be joined by fellow Brit Sasha Pardoe in the final.
“We’ve had some good results and some not so good results – but that’s been a preparation for what’s to come for the rest of the year.”
Meanwhile in the velodrome Olympic silver medallists Jack Carlin and Neah Evans started their campaigns successfully.
Carlin led the men’s sprint team into Friday’s rounds while Evans guided the women’s team pursuit to a round one race against host nation Germany tomorrow.
Elsewhere at the European Aquatics Championships in Rome Great Britain began their medal haul with a silver medal in the women’s 4x200m final.
A quartet of Freya Colbert, Lucy Hope, Medi Harris and Freya Anderson finished second in a time of 7:54.73, with the Netherlands claiming gold in the Italian capital.
In the men’s event a British team of Matt Richards, Kieran Bird, Jacob Whittle and Olympic gold medallist Tom Dean finished in sixth place with the Hungarian quartet taking gold.
Anderson reached her first individual final of the meet, sealing a place in the 100m freestyle final, while James Wilby reached the 100m breaststroke final on the opening evening of action.
Sportsbeat 2022