‘Warrior spirit’ helps cyclist Kenny win 12th European title
Peaty’s breaststroke world record adjusted
GLASGOW, Scotland, Aug 5, (Agencies): Olympic track cycling champion Laura Kenny battled her way to victory in the women’s elimination race at the European Championships on Sunday for her second gold medal of the event and 12th European title overall.
The British cyclist beat Germany’s Anna Knauer in the sprint for gold on the final two laps after a tactically smart race, in which she was at the back of the pack several times but always found a gap to accelerate at the right time and stay in the race.
“It’s the warrior spirit that came to the fore,” Kenny said. “I didn’t feel great. I was up five times last night and (my son) didn’t actually fall asleep at all. But you get used to it. I don’t even feel like I’ve had a lack of sleep anymore, I just come in and get on with it.”
Kenny also won gold with Britain in Friday’s team pursuit, the first major title for the four-time Olympic and seven-time world champion since giving birth to son Albie a year ago.
Silver medalist Knauer was full of praise for Kenny, saying “at championships she’s really incredibly strong all the time. She’s a class of her own.”
Kenny can add a third title when teaming up with Katie Archibald in the women’s madison on Tuesday.
Russia’s Evgenia Augustinas took bronze, repeating her achievement from last year. Defending champion Kirsten Wild of The Netherlands did not start after placing fourth in Saturday’s 100-lap points race.
On the final day of rowing, lightweight women’s double world champions Ionela-Livia Cozmiuc and Gianina-Elena Beleaga failed to add to Romania’s medal haul, but their nation still topped the final ranking with three golds and seven overall.
Olympic champion Ilse Paulis and her partner Marieke Keijser won the race for The Netherlands’ sole rowing gold as the Dutch men’s eight took silver after losing to Germany.
Both Switzerland and Norway won their first two gold medals to wrap up the four-day rowing competition.
British swimming great Adam Peaty’s world record for the 100 metres breaststroke set on Saturday has been adjusted from 57seconds to 57.10sec due to a problem with the timing mechanism, the European Swimming Federation announced on Sunday.
The 23-year-old showed a return to his old form after obliterating his rivals The rowers of the German boat pose with their medals after winning the Men’s Eight final at the European Rowing Championships in Glasgow,
Scotland on Aug 5. (AP)
Portugal compete in the combination free routine final at the Scotstoun Sports Campus during the 2018 European Championships in Glasgow on
Aug 5. (AFP)
in Glasgow at the European Championships to improve on his old world mark of 57.13sec set on the way to winning Olympic gold at Rio 2016.
However, organisers revealed a “configuration delay” of 0.10 seconds affecting the first nine races of the session.
In a statement the European Swimming League (LEN) said: “The LEN.. have, with the benefit of the necessary technical analysis, revised all recorded times for the first nine races during that session.”
Italian Marta Bastianelli won a sprint finish with the great Marianne Vos to strike gold in the European Championships road race on Sunday.
The Dutch team seemed to be controlling affairs at the end of the 130km race, ready to set up victory at the Glasgow Green finish for Vos, only for former world champion Bastianelli to beat her to the punch with a scintillating final burst.
Vos, often hailed as the greatest woman cyclist in history, roared through for the silver but her fellow 31-year-old rival had already flown, beating the Dutchwoman just as she had done at their world championships duel in Stuttgart in 2007.
After nearly three and a half hours of fascinating racing on the undulating nine-lap course, Germany’s Lisa Brennauer, gold medallist in Saturday’s individual pursuit on the track, took the bronze.
Switzerland’s Jeannine Gmelin and Norway’s Kjetil Borch landed the blue riband single sculls titles at the European Championships on Sunday as their respective countries enjoyed a superb final day of the regatta.
World champion Gmelin proved again why she is the fastest woman on the water, powering to another emphatic victory just 75 minutes after compatriot Michael Schmid had won the lightweight men’s single sculls.
The Norwegian teams had already celebrated a victory for Kristoffer Brun and Are Strandli in the lightweight men’s double sculls when Borch rowed to his major singles title after enjoying previous world championship glory in a double.
Gmelin, who has become the dominant force in the gladitorial world of single sculling, lifted the world title last year and has continued her magnificent form in an unbeaten 2018 season. The 28-year-old was again in a different class to her rivals, winning by 1.47 seconds from Austrian Magdalena Lobnig.
Borch, who won an Olympic bronze in Rio de Janeiro in the double alongside the great Olaf Tufte before going it alone, pronounced himself thrilled but “extremely worn out” after his breakthrough singles title.
Brun, 30, and Strandli, 29, reheated the glory of their 2013 world championship triumph with their victory. “It’s fantastic to be back on top,” said Brun.
In the regatta’s final race, always a highlight of the prgramme, world champions Germany took the men’s eights title to become the 11th country to strike gold over the two days of rowing finals at Stathclyde Country Park just outside Glasgow.
Romania topped the rowing medal table with seven, including three golds while Switzerland, Norway, Italy and France ended with two golds apiece.
The French double scullers Hugo Bucheron and Matthieu Androdias won the race of the day, prevailing after a thrilling see-saw encounter over the final 250 metres with silver medallists Romania and bronze winners Britain. It was the first time the championships had been staged amid the new format of the multi-sports European Championships, with lightweight single sculls champion Schmid, the defending champion, admitting it had a different feel to his 2017 win.
Russia’s gymnasts dominated the women’s team event at the European Championships but none of them were able to strike gold in the individual apparatus events on Sunday.
Hungary’s Boglarka Devai won the vault, Belgium’s Nina Derwael successfully defended her asymmetric bars title, Dutch Olympic champion Sanne Wevers prevailed on the balance beam and French starlet Melanie de Jesus was victorious on the floor.
Angelina Melnikova, the outstanding performer in Russia’s win on Friday, was the only member of the victorious team to win an apparatus medal, taking silver in the vault and bronze on the asymmetric bars at the SSE Hydro arena.