Silver for Gilmour at European Games

Scotland’s Kirsty Gilmour won a silver medal for Team GB on the last day of competition at the European Games in Minsk.

Defeat in the final to second seed Mia Blichfeldt of Denmark denied her a first European gold medal but, although understandably disappointed in not taking the top step on the podium, Gilmour can be proud of winning a third silver medal at European level – a fantastic achievement for any athlete.

Speaking afterwards she said: “Today’s performance was not my A-game but not too far off.

“I gave away a few points at key times and you just can’t do that with Mia.

“Fair play to Mia, she was really on it today. Anything loose, she was capitalising on and I just couldn’t get the match to turn in my favour.”

Having progressed to the quarter-finals with relative ease, Gilmour showed characteristic grit and determination to get in amongst the medals.

She bounced back from losing a close first game to Swiss player Sabrina Jaquet to reach the semi-finals before repeating the feat against top seed Line Kjaersfeldt, playing some outstanding badminton to turn around a match which had seemed to be slipping away to win 13-21 21-16 21-8.

But although her week ultimately ended in disappointment with the loss to Blichfeldt, Gilmour’s medal capped a great week for British badminton in Minsk where Team GB won two golds (men’s and mixed doubles) and three silver medals (women’s singles, women’s doubles and mixed doubles).

Full results are at www.tournamentsoftware.com