England celebrated a brace of gold medals on Sunday as Rajiv Ouseph and the Adcocks made history by winning European titles in Denmark.
Both overcoming home opposition, the Adcocks recorded their first ever European Championship medal together as a pair, while Ouseph became only the third ever Englishman to men’s singles gold in the 49-year history of the tournament.
Ouseph won in straight games, downing Danish fifth seed Anders Antonsen 21-19 21-19 in the first ever competitive meeting between the pair, while the Adcocks beat top seeds Joachim Fischer Nielsen and Christinna Pedersen 21-17 18-21 21-19 in a 78-minute epic.
The win for Ouseph came from two hard-fought games, with the Englishman taking a 7-3 lead before Antonsen hit back to take a 12-9 advantage.
Ouseph rallied though and, despite letting an 18-15 lead slip, the 30-year-old sealed it 21-19 to take an all-important opener.
Antonsen had looked set to level matters in the second, with the Dane accelerating from 4-4 to establish a 15-10 lead.
But Ouseph was not giving up his lead lightly and the three-time men’s singles medallist hit back with a run of six consecutive points.
And from 16-15 up Ouseph did not let his lead slip, going on to take it 21-19 and go one better than his silver medal from 2014 to give himself an early present ahead of his wedding later this week.
The day got better for England, too, with Chris Adcock picking up only fourth European Championships medal of his career, following three bronzes in 2012 and 2014.
For Gabby the gold was a first medal at this level, having only previously managed European mixed team bronze in 2017 and 2013.
And the gold came after a battle, with the first and second seeds battling it out over three tight games – with the lower ranked English duo eventually prevailing.
The leading English pair got off to a fine start, powering ahead from 9-9 to take the opener 21-17.
It was the reverse story in the second, with the world number five pairing taking it 21-18, having once again been locked together at 9-9.
The Danes looked to have brought momentum from the second game into the third and took an early 4-0 lead, but five points in a row gave the Adcocks the advantage, only for the Danes to go back ahead 11-9.
That sparked the Adcocks into another gear, though, and six points in a row gave them a lead they never looked back from, eventually taking the deciding game 21-19. Elsewhere in Denmark Scotland's Kirsty Gilmour missed out on gold, but still picked up a silver medal after being defeated by Spain's Carolina Marin in the women's singles final. While Lauren Smith and Sarah Walker also won bronze in the women's doubles for England. Sportsbeat 2017