Success for Irish swimmers and badminton players in Baku
It’s a been a fruitful morning in the pool for Ireland’s swimmers at the European Games in Baku with the Irish 4x100m medley relay squad qualifying for tonight’s final, along with semi-final progress for Emma Reid and Rachel Bethel.
A useful performance in the medley relay saw Ireland come third in their semi-final and eighth overall in 4 minutes 19.56 seconds to narrowly reach this evening’s decider.
Britain won the Irish semi-final in 4:13.43 with Turkey second in 4:17.21 and the Irish quartet of Danielle Hill, Mona McSharry, Emma Reid and Rachel Bethel a further two seconds behind in third place.
The final starts at 4:05pm Irish time.
The result capped a successful morning for Ireland as Bethel and Reid made progress in the 200m freestyle and 100m butterfly respectively.
Bethel, of Lisburn, finished 19th after the first-round heats, but was elevated to the top 16 due to the rule that eliminates swimmers with two quicker team-mates.
Her time of 2:05.37 sees her ranked 12th for tonight’s semi-finals after finishing fifth in her heat.
Meanwhile, Ards swimmer Reid progressed to the 100 butterfly semis by qualifying in 15th position having come seventh in her heat in 1 minute 2.66 seconds.
It comes on a day when Brendan Irvine fights for Irish gold at the Crystal Hall.
The St Paul’s Belfast star faces Russian Bator Sagaluev in the light-flyweight final at 2:45pm Irish time.
There’s been major badminton progress too for Ireland in Baku, with Scott Evans winning his round-of-16 match 21-6 21-13 against Blagovest Kisyov of Bulgaria in straight games in 25 minutes.
Despite Chloe Magee’s exit from the women’s singles on games difference, with the main three in her group having all won two games each, she bounced back to score a mixed doubles win with her brother Sam over Maltese duo Sam Cali and Fiorella Marie Sadowski 21-3 21-2 to qualify for the quarter-finals with a 100% record.
The Magee brothers Josh and Sam are in men’s doubles quarter-finals action tonight against Belgians Matijs Dierickx and Freek Golinski.
It’s the round of 16 for top seed Scott Evans as he meets Blagovest Kisyov of Bulgaria this morning.
Ireland’s 3x3 women’s basketball squad have been given a tough last-16 draw against the Czech Republic, with tip-off time at 3:30.
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