GLASGOW: Britain’s swimming team added two gold medals to their European Championship tally on Sunday, a day after Adam Peaty opened the account with his world-record race in the 100-metre breaststroke.

Peaty earned Britain’s first gold medal by winning the 100-metre breaststroke on Saturday. The European aquatics federation (LEN) on Sunday corrected his 27.00 time to 27.10 still a world record citing ‘a problem with the race timing equipment.’

Georgia Davies won the women’s 50 backstroke, and Britain dominated the men’s 4x200 freestyle relay in the closing event of the day. Russia are the only other nation with three gold medals in swimming after the third day of competition.

Returning to the pool where she secured Commonwealth Games gold and silver four years ago, Davies won the final in 27.23 seconds, leaving her two hundredths short of the European record time she swam in her heat on Saturday.

Anastasiia Fesikova of Russia trailed by 0.08 for silver, while bronze medallist Mimosa Jallow of Finland finished 0.47 behind.

Britain and Russia went 1-2 again in the men’s relay, which the quartet of Calum Jarvis, Duncan Scott, Thomas Dean and James Guy won by 1.34 seconds. Italy was 2.26 behind for the bronze medal.

Earlier, Scott came up short in the 100 freestyle. The gold medallist from the Commonwealth Games recovered from a slow start to claim silver, 0.22 behind Italian winner Alessandro Miressi and 0.01 ahead of Mehdy Metella.

In women’s road cycling, Italy ended the Dutch domination as Marta Bastianelli beat defending champion Marianne Vos in a sprint. Lisa Brennauer of Germany took bronze.

The Netherlands won both European titles since the event was first held in 2016, and the Dutch looked in control again on Sunday as Olympic champion Anna van der Breggen, who won the title in 2016, and Italian rider Elisa Longo Borghini were more than a half-minute ahead of the pack with a few kilometres left.

The Dutch team led the peloton as they started to chase the two leaders. The race ended in a mass sprint but Vos came up well short against Bastianelli, who added the European title to the world title she won 11 years ago.

In track cycling, Olympic champion Laura Kenny battled her way to victory in the women’s elimination race 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 medallist 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 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.

Published in Dawn, August 07th, 2018