Events

Denmark & Bulgaria claim first two historic gold medals
Date: 6/27/2015 3:23 PM
Published by : Manuel Røsler
Every day this week has been historic in some way of fashion. It is the inaugural European Games after all. Today athletes representing six nations created their own piece of European badminton history by being the first ever medal winners of a European Games and the Stoeva Sisters from Bulgaria and Boe & Mogensen from Denmark won those historic first gold’s.

Gabriela & Stefani Stoeva got the show on the road in the first of the doubles finals and while tested by Bolotova and Kosetskaya the Russians were never able to punch a hole in the solid Bulgarian defence. The Russians did make the Bulgarians go and win the gold with a close second game but in the end the red hot favourites did what they came to Baku to do and walk away with the first ever European Games gold medal in badminton.

Boe & Mogensen have dominated recent matches between themselves and the European Champions Ivanov & Sozonov. Today’s final took that domination to a whole new level as the Danes steamrolled their way to gold making the Russians almost look decidedly amateurish in a 21-8 21-13 demolition.

Ivan Sozonov in particular looked out of sorts today. Was it just a bad day at the office for the normally clinical Russian or did the world number two Danes make him look bad? Who knows! One thing is for sure Boe & Mogensen are the first ever winners of a European Games men’s doubles gold and go home to Copenhagen with a suitcase load of multi-sport athletes village experience on the road to Rio.



Danish singles shine in semi-finals

In the morning session the semi-finals of both singles events were played alongside the mixed doubles semi-finals. Emil Holst and Line Kjærsfeldt set themselves up a favourites for the gold medals after beating Dieter Domke and Petya Nedelcheva respectively. The surprise packet of the tournament, Belgians Lianne Tan, once again came back from the brink to beat Clara Azurmendi and who knows, if all her stars align, tomorrow might just be her day.

“You know today when I was a game down and 8 points behind towards the end of the second game I just told myself you did this yesterday so you can do it again. Also I think Clara maybe got a bit nervous but this will only stand to her in the future. Tomorrow is another day and I have certainly nothing to lose so I am going for gold” said Tan after her semi-final win.

Holst will face off against veteran Pablo Abian after the Spanish number one ended the fine run of Lithuania’s Kestutis Navickas.

In the mixed doubles semi-finals French pair Mittelheisser and Fontaine consigned Sam Magee to a second bronze medal beating the Magee siblings in two games while Denmark’s Nøhr & Thygesen were taken the 3 games distance by the revelation of the mixed doubles draw Beck & Kattenbeck of Germany.

For all results from Baku go to the official games website at www.baku2015.com

For a photo gallery from today’s play follow Badminton Europe on facebook by clicking HERE.

Article and Image by Mark Phelan (Live in Baku).

©badmintoneurope.com. All rights reserved.

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