Hannah Mills and Saskia Clark won gold on the final day of racing at the World Cup in Hyeres, while Kirsty Gilmour sealed Scotland’s first ever silver medal at the European Badminton Championships. Here’s our review of the last 24 hours:
Rio-bound golden girls Saskia Clark and Hannah Mills were victorious on the final day of World Cup racing in Hyeres as Britain’s sailors also bagged a silver and two bronze medals in one of the final events before the Olympic Games.
The 2012 world champions sat in second coming into Sunday’s 470 Women’s race just a point behind leaders France, but after New Zealand reined in the Brazilian team of Fernanda Oliviera and Ana Luisa Barbachan, the duo were able to capitalise on the Kiwi’s work to win gold.
And with the pair aiming to convert their silver medal from London 2012 into more gold this summer, Sunday’s victory could not have come at a better time.
“It was exciting – it was absolutely freezing as well,” said Mills. “I think some English weather may have helped us today.
“It was really exciting and really tight, and all the top boats were right up there in the mix so it was a ‘who beats who’ scenario.
“We had our eyes on what was going on and we caught the Brazilians up quite a lot on the second beat, and once we saw that the Kiwis had definitely passed them, we relaxed a bit and really wanted to protect the French to make sure we got the win.”
Clark added: “It’s obviously great to come to any World Cup regatta and win it.
“For me and Hannah to convert a second into a first in the medal race shows we’re making progress, but we’ve still got progress to make.”
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A gold medal may have been the dream but Scottish badminton star Kirsty Gilmour insists she is over the moon after winning a silver medal at the European Championships in France.
The 22-year-old lost 21-12 21-18 at the hands of reigning champion Carolina Marin, but her second-place finish saw her become Scotland’s first ever silver medallist at the event.
Spaniard Marin took early control of the final to capitalise on Gilmour’s slow start, going on to easily take the first game from 4-4.
But Gilmour found her feet in the second game, recovering from 5-1 down to lead 11-9 at the interval.
Marin fought back to take six successive points after the break to take a commanding lead, but despite Gilmour clawing the game back to 15-14, the double world champion refused to let her title slip.
But despite the disappointment in defeat, Gilmour insists the experience will be beneficial in the long run as she looks to qualify for the Olympic Games in Rio later this summer.
“In the first set, I knew she would come out at a million miles an hour so I was just sizing up my shots and adjusting to the pace,” she said. “It took me a little bit too long to get to the pace of it.
“It’s very satisfying to win silver. It’s definitely one for the CV but it’s the second time it could have been gold at a major championship following the Commonwealth Games, but everything at this age is a learning curve.
“It’s building blocks but we’ll get there one day. At least I can wake up and say that I got a silver medal at the European Championships.
“I have a rest week now so I am going to put my feet up for a couple of days but badminton is never far from your mind, especially this year.
“It’s been a long year in one sense and a short one in another, and there’s still more to do and a few tournaments before Rio.”
Adam Yates is looking ahead to the Criterium du Dauphine after capping a successful spring by finishing as the top British rider at the Tour de Yorkshire.
The Bury rider finished third on Sunday’s final stage from Middlesbrough to Scarborough, a 198km route over the North York Moors including six categorised climbs.
Yates could not quite keep pace with Nicolas Roche and Thomas Voeckler when they jumped away during the run-in to Scarborough and the latter out-sprinted the Team Sky rider to claim the stage and the overall victory.
Yates finished fourth in the overall standings and declared himself happy with the result.
“The guys were attacking and I was holding on - I didn’t really have the punch or the kick to accelerate myself so that is how it goes really - sometimes there are guys stronger that you and there is nothing you can do about it,” said Yates.
“It is pretty awesome to be top Brit and finish third on the day, towards the end I was suffering quite a bit.
“But the team rode awesome all week, the whole three days, so we can be happy with that and we will take that confidence into the second half of the season.”
British number one Johanna Konta was forced to withdraw from the Madrid Open on Sunday with a respiratory illness.
The 24-year-old was trailing 6-4 2-1 in her first round match against France’s Caroline Garcia when she decided to pull out.
It was a disappointing day too for Laura Robson as she suffered a 6-4 6-2 first round defeat to Victoria Azarenka of Belarus.
Despite saving five match points, the former British number one lost in 84 minutes to the current world number one.
And Heather Watson could not use her lucky loser place to her advantage as she lost to Australian Daria Gavrilova.
Watson, who lost to Croatia’s Mirjana Lucic-Baroni in Saturday’s qualifying round, won a place in the main draw after Yulia Putintseva withdrew through injury.
But it wasn’t to be for Watson as she crashed to a 7-5 6-4 defeat to Gavrilova in the first round on Sunday.
Ellie Downie struck gold four times at the Osijek World Challenge Cup at the weekend to move herself one step closer to qualifying for the Olympic gymnastics team.
Her first World Cup event, Downie took the vault and bars titles on Saturday with scores of 14.85 and 14.675 respectively.
And on Sunday, she doubled her medal tally with a score of 14.95 in the beam event followed by 14.525 on the floor to secure all four golds.
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