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European Youth Olympic Festival: Hat-trick of GB medals

July 22, 2024

Team GB’s swimmers kicked off the medal count with a hat-trick of medals on the first day of the European Youth Olympic Festival (EYOF) competition in Finland.The day started off brightly with Grant Halsell achieving bronze, despite performing below par by his own admissions. This was then followed up by Welshman Leuan Lloyd converting his hopes of achieving gold in the 200m individual medley into a reality as he claimed team GB’s first gold of the competition.

The women’s 4x100m relay team completed the days medal count for day one as they picked up team GB’s second bronze of the competition. Natasha Hofton, Rachel Martin, Amelia Maughan and Katherine Woolston-Thomas finished with a time of 3:30.71 and were narrowly edged out by France and Italy who won gold and silver respectively.

Elsewhere, team GB’s track and field athletes got their campaign under way at the Tampere Ratina Stadium. Sprinter Jennifer Batten wasn’t affected by the soggy conditions as she stormed through to the final of the 100m with a personal best time of 11.89s, winning her semi-final and finishing second fastest overall.

A satisfied Batten said, “I’m into the final now and that’s all that matters, that was my target before the race and thankfully I managed to perform when it counted.”

Lucy James joined the list of GB qualifiers as she finished second in her women’s 400m heat with a time of 55.46s to qualify fourth fastest for tomorrow’s semi-finals. In the field, Isobel Pooley dealt with the tricky conditions like a true professional to safely clear 1.74m to qualify for tomorrow’s final.

Scotland’s Morven McCulloch beat Stefani Andreeva of Bulgaria in the women’s singles, 6-4 6-3, while compatriot Jazzamay Drew comfortably defeated Lee Levy of Israel, 6-0 6-1. The two then paired up to compete in the women’s doubles, but despite having saved match points in the second set, went down 10-8 in the decisive third set to their Portuguese opposition.

In spite of this, McCulloch was pleased with her singles display, “My game plan was to stick to my usual style of play, which is quite attacking with a lot of serve and volley and that worked well.”

A fantastic start to the European Youth Olympic Festival, and with a promising line-up of athletics still yet to compete, we are surely in for many more medals.

Sam Cook, Sportsister
The Women’s Sports Magazine

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